Commonplace Book

A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

(James 3:17) 

"Nobody can take away from you what you put in your own mind."

(Helen Klein, mother of Auschwitz survivor Edith Eva Eger in her book, The Choice, Rider, 2017)

"For every worry under the sun

There is a remedy or there is none.

If there is one, hurry and find it,

If there is none never mind it."

(LaGrand Richards, 1886-1983, Member of the Quorum of the Twelve from 1952-1983)

"Every morning in Africa when a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."

(Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen)

"In a paradoxical period when violating the sanctity of human life is heralded as a right and chaos is described as liberty, how blessed we are to live in this latter-day dispensation when restored gospel light can shine brightly in our lives and help us to discern the adversary’s dark deceptions and distractions."

(Elder David A Bednar, Watchful unto Prayer Continually, October Conference 2019)

"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."

(1 John 3:18)

"A lot of times the Spirit doesn't tell me what to do. I have to act consistently with what I've learned to be right."

(A newly called bishop, Fast & Testimony Meeting, 3 November 2019, about four months after having been called as bishop)

A Glorious Mess

Except our very first apartment, we never owned or rented a house that had a garage until we moved to the Midwest.  Since moving here, we've never lived anywhere that didn't have a garage.  Our first home here only had a single car garage but every home after that had at least a two car garage.  One place we lived had a garage that could hold four cars.  Oh, that one was a hard thing to give up when we moved out of that place.  But there were several compelling reasons to move and so we moved.  The garage was probably one of the best things about that place.  Anyway, in all the years since we moved to the Midwest and have had a garage we have really come to enjoy them.

That's not to say, however, that we have always used our garage for parking cars.  We used to do that at first.  But then it seemed more and more that we began using the garage for storage. Now, and for the last few years, it seems that has become the primary purpose of having a garage.

That's an interesting proposition, a garage as storage space.  Its typically not our own stuff that gets stored out in the garage.  More often than not, we've stored our kids stuff out there while they are between places.  And I have to admit, that usually, those that have stored stuff in our garage have been good about not leaving it there forever.  Months, at times, while they arranged their own space, but still months and months.  Make no mistake, we are more than happy to help out our kids in this way.  But it has meant that our cars don't fit in the garage.  If you'll notice, anytime you see pictures of our driveway, there are frequently three, four, and five cars in it, only two of which are our own.  That's another story.

And that's not to say its all their stuff out there.  We have things of our own that live out there, such as lawn mowers, the snowblower, kayaks, bicycles, camp gear, gardening tools and supplies, and so on.  When we first moved in here we built some shelves that a lot of that stuff lives on.  Some of it hangs from the rafters, some of it lives on the floor.  But its the kids stuff that's extra, that usually keeps our cars from fitting in the garage.

The thing about storing our kids stuff in the garage is that it means stuff has constantly been coming and going; the shape of the mess in the garage has constantly been changing, like a living, breathing mass.  Constantly changing shape.

February 2018

We try to keep a couple of trails open so we can get to things but as this kid's stuff or that kid's stuff is out there, and they occasionally need to find things that are out there, or we need to find things that are out there, someone is going through it, looking for this or that, stacking and piling, or restacking and rearranging this pile or that one, to find what they need.

February 2018

We go camping and root through it to get out the camping gear.  Then there's the seasons.  Fall gives way to winter and we have to move the lawnmower back and bring the snowblower forward.  Then spring arrives and the lawnmower comes back out front and the snowblower goes to the back.  Each time that  happens we have to seriously dig, sort, and rearrange; that riding lawnmower needs lots of space to be able to shift places.

February 2018

And so it goes, back and forth, in and out, stir it up once, stir it up again.

February 2018

Sometimes someone's stuff would come and go in only a few weeks or a couple of months.  Some times it would come and stay.  And stay.  And stay.

March 2018

This is also not to say that the kids are the only ones that ever store things out there temporarily.  Twice we've had water out of place in the house that has required major upheaval in the house.  That time the hose on the dishwasher broke, flooding the kitchen.  Everything in the kitchen, and I do mean everything, even the cabinetry, went out in the garage.  That was three years ago and our kitchen was in the garage pretty much all summer.  The other time was a few years before that, "The Great Flood" we call it.  Flooded nearly the entire house, upstairs and down.  Lots of stuff went out into the garage while carpet was replaced.

March 2018

Sometimes the garage has actually looked, well, not quite empty, but emptier.

May 2018

From one angle it would look as bad as ever ...

May 2018

But from a slightly different angle it looked like there was plenty of room.

January 2019

But that never seems to last very long.  Especially when you acquire a trailer and don't want it outside in the weather.  Weather is so hard on trailers, cuts their useful life short.

January 2019

And then your son acquires a big couch and doesn't want to drag it downstairs because he's looking for a place of his own and thinks he'll just be hauling it back up the stairs.  Yeah, so he sets it on top of the trailer.

March 2019

That means you can only use the trailer with great difficulty because the couch is so hard to move.

March 2019

In all the time we've stored kids' stuff in the garage, that has really been the only time it was inconvenient in a major way.

March 2019

But we did find a solution and the couch did end up down stairs and out of the way.

November 2019

That brings us to the present.  I don't know about your house, but around here, any time something gets moved for any length of time, leaving an empty space, that empty space seems to fill up with something else.  So that whatever was moved no longer has a place to go back to.  Fall was here, and winter was rapidly approaching.  The lawnmower was still up front and the snowblower was still in the back.  And, at this particular moment, the trailer was outside.  I was really feeling a real sense of urgency to get the trailer back inside and the snowblower up front so on a recent Saturday I went out to do some rearranging.  The problem with that, however, was that I am still recovering somewhat from an accident I was in last September.  Brombeere heard me rummaging around out in the garage and came out to see what I was up to.  When she heard what I wanted to do she decided I needed some supervision and help.

November 2019

That set the stage for some interesting developments. The space where the trailer had been moved out of several weeks before had been filled with other stuff that now needed to be moved.  In addition, some of the stuff that had been littering the floor, boxes, totes, and stuff, we wanted to put up on the highest shelf where it would be well out o the way.  And with Brombeere involved now, this wasn't going to be merely rearranging, this was going to involve actual cleaning.  That's actually not a bad thing.

November 2019

But the cleaning lead to some interesting moments.  We didn't just move boxes and totes around.  We rooted through many of them, cleaning and tossing stuff.  That was at times exciting.  Like the time Brombeere reached into a box to see what was in it, clear to the bottom, and a mouse jumped out at her.  That was when we learned that mice can jump as much as a foot or more.  This one sure did, right at Brombeere, and then beat a hasty retreat away, across the garage floor, into the back corner.  During the course of the two hours or so we spent cleaning we saw about five mice, most of them alive and running.  A couple were dead and still.  The live ones you only get a glimpse of as they run away.  We hadn't realized we had that many mice out there so we've set some traps and have been working on reducing the mice population.  But it sure lead to some exciting times while we were cleaning..

November 2019

Anyway, the day's efforts were successful and we were able to make room in the garage.  It appeared for a little while to be one of those emptier moments.

November 2019

Then the trailer went back in.  But even still, there's lots more room out there than was before.  A lot of stuff got thrown away, especially if it was mouse damaged.  A few days later, after the trashman had hauled off all the stuff we set out and the rest was better arranged, it actually felt roomier than it has felt out there for a long time.

November 2019

We're calling it a successful day.  There's still more to do but it snowed 3" the day the trailer got moved back in and its cold now.  Today it actually spent most of the day below zero.  The rest can wait until its warmer.  Like next spring, when its time to move the riding lawnmower back up front and the snowblower to the back.  Yeah, a never ending cycle.  That's how life is.

Not Because of the Weight of His Brain

We have this dog staying with us.  He actually belongs to Himbeere but since Himbeere lives here so does the dog.  And so the dog is staying with us.  Anyway, while this dog has been living with us we have noticed some things about him.  Odd things, actually.  Perhaps oddest is how he rests his chin on whatever is handy.

Its like the weight of his head is too much to hold up so he rests his chin on whatever is in front of him.

More often than not, its on a little table in our front room. He'll rest his chin on the table, which is just the right height, and stare out the big window, into the front yard.  Not at anything in particular.  Just staring out the window.

But its not confined to staring out the window.  Sometimes its elsewhere as well.  This dog is social enough that he doesn't like to be alone.  So he'll tag along and hang out near wherever "his people" are.  And  he'll find something to rest his chin on while he hangs out nearby.

He'll rest his chin on your knee, given the opportunity.  Sometimes I think its a way of asking for attention.  He definitely does it when he wants something, although its sometimes difficult to tell what exactly he wants when he does this.

Sometimes it seems to be his way of being close to his people.  He'll do it without particularly wanting anything.  At least not obviously wanting something.

Other times it seems like he'll do it on whatever happens to be near wherever he is, not particularly looking at anything.

 Its like he's just passing the time, conserving energy, hanging out wherever.

 Yes, this strikes me a definitely a strange quirk of this big, normally energetic dog.

 He just likes to be close, near his people.

 Most dogs, when they are waiting on their people, will go to sleep.  That's been my experience.  And this dog will do that, too.  But as often as not, if he's waiting near his people, waiting until they do something interesting, he'll rest his chin while he waits.  Yes, there are some strange things about this mutt.

Commonplace Book

 A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

"How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” (Samuel Johnson, (1709-1785. An English poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer.)

"Remember that the first and great commandment is to love God with our heart, might, mind, and strength. All that we do should be motivated by our love for Him and for His Son. As we develop our love for Them by keeping Their commandments, our capacity to love ourselves and to love others will increase."

(Peter M Johnson, Power to Overcome the Adversary, October Conference 2019)

"You can choose to be kind. Be kind."

(Admin, Bookstore employee writes this on Facebook after “little old lady” shocks everyone at the register, Daily Love Online, September 22, 2019)

"The ancient prophets speak of ‘entering into God’s rest’; what does it mean? To my mind, it means entering into the knowledge and love of God, having faith in his purpose and in his plan, to such an extent that we know we are right, and that we are not hunting for something else, we are not disturbed by every wind of doctrine, or by the cunning and craftiness of men who lie in wait to deceive … The man who has reached that degree of faith in God that all doubt and fear have been cast from him, he has entered into ‘God’s rest.’ … I pray that we may all enter into God’s rest—rest from doubt, from fear, from apprehension of danger, rest from the religious turmoil of the world” 

(Joseph F Smith, Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. [1939], 58).

Oaks: He's an effective decision maker. He's not a postponer. Like a surgeon who must make a decision right now and can't appoint a committee to study it. He's gifted at noticing when we need to postpone a decision to get more facts. But for the most part, when something comes before him, he decides it. And we love that.

Eyring: Even in our schedules, he moves everything rapidly; why not now? Whenever we have - if we're going to do it, let's do it now."

(An exchange between Elder Dallin H Oaks and Elder Henry B Eyring, describing Pres Russell M Nelson as part of the celebration of Pres Nelson's 95th birthday, September 6, 2019, emphasis added)

"It's good to remember that there is still a place in religion for faith."

M Russell Ballard, An Epistle from an Apostle, Ensign, September 2019, page 23)

"If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory...The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak…We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out."

(Jane Austen, 1775 – 1817, English novelist)

"The acquisition of memories is the business of life."

(The character Charles Carson, played by Jim Carter, Downton Abbey, S4:E4)

Happy Halloween!

The other day, a few days before Halloween, Himbeere and his girlfriend wanted to carve some pumpkins.  So they bought a couple and brought them to the house to carve up.  We thought that was pretty nice.  They were good enough to lay out some newspapers, to contain the mess, and then set about the job.

Himbeere wanted to "design" his before cutting.  His friend just got right down to business and began cleaning out her pumpkin and carving.

As a result, she got a ways ahead of him.  But he kept at it and kept working.

Its a fine art, carving pumpkins.  They both worked away at it.

Pretty soon some nice looking jack-o-lanterns began taking shape.

Himbeere, holding up his friend's pumpkin - she was a little ahead of him in the whole operation.

When they were all done they put candles in them.  They looked pretty nice.  Then they set them out on the front porch.  Very festive.  And there they waited until the little trick-or-treaters came along a few days later.  It was a nice evening.