Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

What is Going Well in Your Life?


Recommended Posts

Quote

What is Going Well in Your Life?

I love this thread, hearing your stories makes me feel good and wish I had some of that tranquility most of you enjoy. I liked Smac's freeze drying, Bluebell's hiking goal, Rongo's German teaching, (it is one of the languages I speak & enjoy), Garden Girl's beautiful beach house....And here I spend my days missing Utah's deserts....I have a place in PC and never skied one day in my life......I don't think there's more beautiful place than Utah, even if you expand the boundaries to Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, NM life could be beautiful. I live in Houston, Kids are in Salt Lake....And being such hard_headed atheist,  the thought seldom escapes my mind that this is the only shot I have to Life...I would like to life to fullest.........

Link to comment
5 minutes ago, MorningStar said:

Cool thread!

1.  I've also started exercising more and am using my Fitbit to encourage me.  I got thrown off by a broken elbow earlier this year. 

2.  I have over 7,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel and one of my videos has over 1 million views. :D  Slowly making progress. 

3.  I helped some friends learn to stand up for themselves and it feels great! 

your 're not the lady who does Miranda Sings is it?

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Atheist Mormon said:

.And being such hard_headed atheist,  the thought seldom escapes my mind that this is the only shot I have to Life...I would like to life to fullest.........

Boy, are you in for a surprise... :o;)

No... seriously, Atheist... I encourage you and send good wishes.  I hope your path will lead you back to those Utah deserts...

GG

Edited by Garden Girl
Link to comment
56 minutes ago, Duncan said:

your 're not the lady who does Miranda Sings is it?

Hahahahaha!!!!! No, I don't like wearing lisstick. 

Link to comment

1)  My daughter's ECT treatment is working.  This is big, big, big for all of us, life changing.  I think I have babbled about it before, so don't need to here.

2)  One of my mom's helpers is willing to come out into the depths of the wild and help with the deep cleaning stuff and she cleans like I want to without me telling her a thing.  I have been in bed the majority of times she's been here, I just point her in the direction I want her to hit next.

I may have all my projects done by the end of summer if she sews as well.  It seems a bit petty, but my home is my refuge and the last few years it feels more like a refuge camp to me (living in survival mode) because there are so many things that just need a few hours of love and care, but haven't gotten it.

3)  Took a tour of a close facility for assisted living and it is practically perfect and within my mom's budget, so if she needs more care, I already have a solution...and she has even been talking about it as a possibility, which is absolutely shocking given how resistant she has been before.  She will get much more privacy if she moves in there than with us (which is her big thing) so no guilt or fear on my part over having to move when I am not up to it so she can be with us and it is close enough either me, my kids, my grandkids and/or husband can pop in daily for a visit easily....and free ice cream when we do. :)  My daughter thinks she will go over and crash their Pet Therapy.

Edited by Calm
Link to comment
On 4/11/2018 at 11:56 AM, smac97 said:

Let us set aside, for the moment, our differences of opinion and share some good things going on in our lives.  Not to brag or show off.  Let's just share some good things and rejoice in a Psalm 118:24 kind of way ("This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.").

Lots of great things going on in life right now.

1. We have finally convinced my wife's parents to leave the West Coast and spend the remainder of their days here in Zion (read: The Great State of Texas). One of my wife's siblings (and her family) will be moving down here as well, so it will be great having more family around. Plus, having her parents and sister's family here effectively shifts the nexus for family gatherings to our hometown (so no more traveling and more opportunities to see visiting relatives).

2. Without going into too much detail, a close family member suffers from a genetic disease which, ten years ago, doctors were saying might possibly be cured within our lifetime. Well, the FDA has recently approved a new drug treatment that will essentially do just that. Technically, it isn't a cure in the sense that you take these pills for x days and then are all better. It's more of, take this one pill daily and it will treat the underlying issue that was causing all these other problems that you had to be treated separately. 

3. On the food front, I finally got one of those precision cookers and have started dabbling with sous vide cooking. It is totally fun. Or maybe just having an excuse to cook steak more often is what's fun. I'm happy either way. :)

Link to comment
22 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Lots of great things going on in life right now.

1. We have finally convinced my wife's parents to leave the West Coast and spend the remainder of their days here in Zion (read: The Great State of Texas). One of my wife's siblings (and her family) will be moving down here as well, so it will be great having more family around. Plus, having her parents and sister's family here effectively shifts the nexus for family gatherings to our hometown (so no more traveling and more opportunities to see visiting relatives).

2. Without going into too much detail, a close family member suffers from a genetic disease which, ten years ago, doctors were saying might possibly be cured within our lifetime. Well, the FDA has recently approved a new drug treatment that will essentially do just that. Technically, it isn't a cure in the sense that you take these pills for x days and then are all better. It's more of, take this one pill daily and it will treat the underlying issue that was causing all these other problems that you had to be treated separately. 

3. On the food front, I finally got one of those precision cookers and have started dabbling with sous vide cooking. It is totally fun. Or maybe just having an excuse to cook steak more often is what's fun. I'm happy either way. :)

I will become you extended family...move ...and put a plate on for me with all this cooking!!!  P.S.  I hope this disease will be dismissed with a new medication..prayers for that!

Edited by Jeanne
Link to comment

As my world grows smaller each day, I remember all the things I used to be. All that I have seen in this world, all that I have done, and all that I have been. Looking back upon all of those things, I know they have made me what I am today. But I also have to find an identity in what I am now, and not the "not any longer". But, looking back I also know that I am still, all that I sought to be, a "Husband", a "Father", and a "Papa", my tiny family of three when it began, is now (come next month) 19. You know all the things I sought out to be before I began this journey. I am also a "Mormon Pioneer", I have been a member for 25% of the Church's History, when I became a member, the Church had a membership of around 4,000,000. When I returned home to Georgia, it was few Wards and two Stakes in the three States. Today it is countless Wards and Stakes within a single State. In fact, the size of my first Ward (in geographical area) upon returning home in April 1984, is now less than the entire Stake is which I live now. 

I may not have walked across the plains to do it, but I walked though countless lives and many years in helping to build this Faiith, to building my family and to live a full life. I do not know where it has yet to lead me, but I will continue to walk in Faith. A few months ago in Priesthood an instructor asked the question of all, "what if you had even gotten your dream job, or done all that you wanted to do"? While many mumbled comments like "I wish", or "how they hope too", I raised my hand and told the instructor that, "I already have". It was a wonderful, and liberating feeling. I do find it difficult struggle to live within my current physical limitations, as I have come to this day so soon in life. But, I rejoice in the knowledge that I have seen so much of the world, and still hope to see more. I rejoice in the knowledge that I have done so much, before I was forced to do so little, and yet I have more to do. I finally I rejoice that my primary goals in life, have reminded my primary focus, and that being, Family first, Family always, and Family Forever. Next month, when the 19th arrives, it will be the first child of my youngest son! Truly, "my cup runneth over". 

When first I read the OP, I began to look only at my limitations. But, I thank you for giving me pause to see the realities, and the possibilities yet to come! Enough for now, as it is difficult to edit so much, in the method is which I must type. :) 

 

Link to comment

1  Hobby of model trains is doing well.  I will be in Germany (model train capital of the world) this fall for a convention (Cologne) and then the largest model train show in Europe in Utrecht Holland-Eurospoor!!!

2.  Career is excellent.  I will have a record year of income and last year was not too B.A.D.!

3.  Family is well.  Wife and I are taking granddaughter to Universal Studios Hollywood in June as a birthday present.  Will spend very quality time with extended family at country home this spring and summer.  All my children live within a few miles of my city house.

Edited by mrmarklin
Link to comment
45 minutes ago, mrmarklin said:

1  Hobby of model trains is doing well.  I will be in Germany (model train capital of the world) this fall for a convention (Cologne) and then the largest model train show in Europe in Utrecht Holland-Eurospoor!!!

2.  Career is excellent.  I will have a record year of income and last year was not too B.A.D.!

3.  Family is well.  Wife and I are taking granddaughter to Universal Studios Hollywood in June as a birthday present.  Will spend very quality time with extended family at country home this spring and summer.  All my children live within a few miles of my city house.

So uh...can I move in with you??  I like trains...i love Disney World and grandkids...and uh...would love to tidy up a country home for ya...!:P

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Let's see.  Shauna and I just downsized from a Bethel Park home we loved to a Canonsburg townhouse, closer to my work.  After several months of getting it ready last Summer and Fall, it sold in five days to family where the mother grew up in the neighborhood and always considered it her dream house.   After lots more jobs (painting, moving, setting up shelves,  we're settled in the new place, and the new Washington PA ward.  Empty nesting, with our son in Kansas, and daughter 25 minutes away in PIttsburgh.

We're enjoying our callings as Regional ARP Reps.  She's gotten pretty much over the rehab from last summer's knee replacement.  We're enjoying the proximity of our daughter and two granddaughters.  While they were visiting on March 31st, we Skyped with my 99 year old and wonderfully alert Mom, who had a good laugh watching the girls (4 and 2.5) perform their antics.  I just found that Penny, the four year old, loves for me to read comics to her like Marvel Origins, and Tintin, King Ottokar's Scepter.

I've been working for the same company for 14 years, Technical Writing.  Shauna is enjoying retirement, planning a vacation in the Fall, perhaps to France and Spain, with my Spanish speaking son coming to translate.  Shauna still does a little French from her mission days.

I've just been listening to Russian Roulette on my Noon walks, and see the ongoing relevance of Nibley's The Rise of Rhetoric and the Decline of Everything Else, and The Unsolved Loyalty Problem, as well as an unpublished essay on The Roman Satirists.

https://www.scribd.com/document/236716019/Roman-Satire-and-Us

We DVR Colbert, and Trevor Noah, and Samantha Bee and Rachel Maddow for daily therapy during dinner.  Four years ago, after Shauna's first knee replacement, we spotted a floor model of a Sony 70" 3D capable HDTV.   I recently sprang for an all region player, so as to extend the supply of 3D, since the US market is in decline.  At least, Best Buy did not carry the 3D for Thor Ragnarok.  I got one from Rahul on eBay, and it looks fantastic.  I just ordered Mary and the Witches Flower on blu ray, due on May 1, planning to show my granddaughters.  My players and TV had a 2D>3D feature that I particularly like for watching anime, as well as some live things like the Dr. Who "Blink" episode with the Weeping Angels.   Shauna and I have been rewatching Medium, Numbers, and The Mentalist.  I've got a Darbee DVD 5000s to enhance the Blu Ray and an Amazon Fire for Streaming.

And working on a few more writing projects as time permits and obsession dictates.   A few reviews for Interpreter,  one called  "Shedding Light and Casting Shade".

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

You have a wonderful and beautiful life...but really..Rachel Maddow????:(  Your home sounds like fun and so wonderful your mother is so alert and keen.  Best to you...but Rachel Maddow????

Link to comment
1 hour ago, mrmarklin said:

Hobby of model trains is doing well.  I will be in Germany (model train capital of the world) this fall for a convention (Cologne) and then the largest model train show in Europe in Utrecht Holland-Eurospoor!!!

Sounds like a blast. I always thought miniatures and model trains were kind of neat. Then, a few years back, I was searching around on the internet and found some company (whose name I can't remember now) in Europe that makes ultra high-end model trains and I thought to myself, 'Whoa! These...are...flipping...AMAZING!' Seriously, I could see myself getting really caught up in something like that. 

Link to comment

1. I love my calling in Primary.

2. My mom could come and visit for 3 weeks...this has never happened before. Even though she has dementia, I am grateful for how well she is still doing and she still knows who I am.

3. Being a grandma is the best thing in the world. I am grateful that I have good relationships with all my kids and siblings.

Link to comment
5 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Let's see.  Shauna and I just downsized from a Bethel Park home we loved to a Canonsburg townhouse, closer to my work.  After several months of getting it ready last Summer and Fall, it sold in five days to family where the mother grew up in the neighborhood and always considered it her dream house.   After lots more jobs (painting, moving, setting up shelves,  we're settled in the new place, and the new Washington PA ward.  Empty nesting, with our son in Kansas, and daughter 25 minutes away in PIttsburgh.

We're enjoying our callings as Regional ARP Reps.  She's gotten pretty much over the rehab from last summer's knee replacement.  We're enjoying the proximity of our daughter and two granddaughters.  While they were visiting on March 31st, we Skyped with my 99 year old and wonderfully alert Mom, who had a good laugh watching the girls (4 and 2.5) perform their antics.  I just found that Penny, the four year old, loves for me to read comics to her like Marvel Origins, and Tintin, King Ottokar's Scepter.

I've been working for the same company for 14 years, Technical Writing.  Shauna is enjoying retirement, planning a vacation in the Fall, perhaps to France and Spain, with my Spanish speaking son coming to translate.  Shauna still does a little French from her mission days.

I've just been listening to Russian Roulette on my Noon walks, and see the ongoing relevance of Nibley's The Rise of Rhetoric and the Decline of Everything Else, and The Unsolved Loyalty Problem, as well as an unpublished essay on The Roman Satirists.

https://www.scribd.com/document/236716019/Roman-Satire-and-Us

We DVR Colbert, and Trevor Noah, and Samantha Bee and Rachel Maddow for daily therapy during dinner.  Four years ago, after Shauna's first knee replacement, we spotted a floor model of a Sony 70" 3D capable HDTV.   I recently sprang for an all region player, so as to extend the supply of 3D, since the US market is in decline.  At least, Best Buy did not carry the 3D for Thor Ragnarok.  I got one from Rahul on eBay, and it looks fantastic.  I just ordered Mary and the Witches Flower on blu ray, due on May 1, planning to show my granddaughters.  My players and TV had a 2D>3D feature that I particularly like for watching anime, as well as some live things like the Dr. Who "Blink" episode with the Weeping Angels.   Shauna and I have been rewatching Medium, Numbers, and The Mentalist.  I've got a Darbee DVD 5000s to enhance the Blu Ray and an Amazon Fire for Streaming.

And working on a few more writing projects as time permits and obsession dictates.   A few reviews for Interpreter,  one called  "Shedding Light and Casting Shade".

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

This post proves to me liberals and conservatives could get along quite well. We can sit and watch Thor Ragnoraok, Medium, Numbers and The Mentalists in complete harmony. ;)

Link to comment
15 hours ago, Jeanne said:

You have a wonderful and beautiful life...but really..Rachel Maddow????:(  Your home sounds like fun and so wonderful your mother is so alert and keen.  Best to you...but Rachel Maddow????

Yes.  We hadn't paid attention until the past month or so.  Then after an interview with Colbert in which he said he liked the way she went beyond the headline of the moment and put key events and personalities into a  meaningful broader context of historical connections and present implications.  We decided to watch one, and agreed, that is exactly what she does.  Generally, our default channel is CNN for a peek at the breaking story of the moment, but they tend to cycle through the same bits of news over and over all day.   There's nothing wrong with, that but ten or twenty minutes does the job before repetition kicks in. As for Hannity, he makes me want to reach for the salt shaker for him and Tums for myself.   But I check a range of Web sites for different perspectives, and I think about this sort of thing:

https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult

What are my social networks?  Who do I trust and why?  One thing missing from his essay is the notion of human development as expressed in the Perry Scheme of Cognitive and Ethical Growth, and one aspect of that is how a person deals with complexity.  Sure, a person can move from Position 2, on to Position 5, and then to Position 9, but a person can also decide to "retreat" from Position 5 back to binary thinking.  "We are good, and they are bad."  Us and Them.  In group, out group.  That simplifies things, but am I looking for simplicity and re-enforcement, or further light and knowledge?

Another is how do I evaluate sources?  It is a matter of finding an authority figure to defer to, or is it a matter of how I personally experiment, test, evaluate, value, grow, change?  (Alma 32 and Kuhn). Do I evaluate sources by self-referential methods or self-critical methods?  Or do I find people who tell me what I want to hear, or what I need to hear?   Is it a matter of finding the right social group, and deferring to
their opinions and values, or finding one that indulges my opinions and values?  That is, do I defer to the what a social group deems orthodox, or that a social group enables my desires?  In such cases,
I am not called upon to make the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and therefore need not learn anything disturbing, or that calls for personal sacrifice.  Or is it a matter of ongoing self-examination of one's own eye for beams in order to see clearly, and of continual repentance?  Joseph Smith wrote that "By proving contraries, truth is made manifest."  I like that.

As as far as conservatives getting along with liberals, I should think conservatives, especially LDS conservatives ought to consider it, particularly in light of the key verse in the story of the Restoration, James 1:5, which does not talk about how God, like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, sets the proper example for us by giving "to all men conservatively, and upbraideth constantly."

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Link to comment

What a great positive post.  I have a beautiful wife and a happy marriage, 3 healthy college age children who studying and beginning their careers, my career has recently improved,  my business investments are improving, and I'm competing at a professional level in my sport. 

Phaedrus  

Link to comment
11 minutes ago, phaedrus ut said:

What a great positive post.  I have a beautiful wife and a happy marriage, 3 healthy college age children who studying and beginning their careers, my career has recently improved,  my business investments are improving, and I'm competing at a professional level in my sport. 

Phaedrus  

Do tell! What sport(s) do you play?

Link to comment
40 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Yes.  We hadn't paid attention until the past month or so.  Then after an interview with Colbert in which he said he liked the way she went beyond the headline of the moment and put key events and personalities into a  meaningful broader context of historical connections and present implications.  We decided to watch one, and agreed, that is exactly what she does.  Generally, our default channel is CNN for a peek at the breaking story of the moment, but they tend to cycle through the same bits of news over and over all day.   There's nothing wrong with, that but ten or twenty minutes does the job before repetition kicks in. As for Hannity, he makes me want to reach for the salt shaker for him and Tums for myself.   But I check a range of Web sites for different perspectives, and I think about this sort of thing:

https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult

What are my social networks?  Who do I trust and why?  One thing missing from his essay is the notion of human development as expressed in the Perry Scheme of Cognitive and Ethical Growth, and one aspect of that is how a person deals with complexity.  Sure, a person can move from Position 2, on to Position 5, and then to Position 9, but a person can also decide to "retreat" from Position 5 back to binary thinking.  "We are good, and they are bad."  Us and Them.  In group, out group.  That simplifies things, but am I looking for simplicity and re-enforcement, or further light and knowledge?

Another is how do I evaluate sources?  It is a matter of finding an authority figure to defer to, or is it a matter of how I personally experiment, test, evaluate, value, grow, change?  (Alma 32 and Kuhn). Do I evaluate sources by self-referential methods or self-critical methods?  Or do I find people who tell me what I want to hear, or what I need to hear?   Is it a matter of finding the right social group, and deferring to
their opinions and values, or finding one that indulges my opinions and values?  That is, do I defer to the what a social group deems orthodox, or that a social group enables my desires?  In such cases,
I am not called upon to make the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and therefore need not learn anything disturbing, or that calls for personal sacrifice.  Or is it a matter of ongoing self-examination of one's own eye for beams in order to see clearly, and of continual repentance?  Joseph Smith wrote that "By proving contraries, truth is made manifest."  I like that.

As as far as conservatives getting along with liberals, I should think conservatives, especially LDS conservatives ought to consider it, particularly in light of the key verse in the story of the Restoration, James 1:5, which does not talk about how God, like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, sets the proper example for us by giving "to all men conservatively, and upbraideth constantly."

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Very Interesting!!  I just had a distaste for Maddow...no reason and it shouldn't be so..I get most of my news from the internet in various places...and go from CNN to FOX all the time.  I believe my problem is that I just do not trust a lot of news outlets out there..I do love 20 /20 and 60 Minutes...and get news daily from DN and the Trib.  I try to look at all sides of a story and yet a tendency to always pick an underdog.  Thank you.~

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...