When Sheila  read my recent posts  she said that I had left out a lot of detail.  I knew that I had, and I felt lucky to have done as much as I did.  I figure that it will be hard to go back and fill in all of the blanks, so I won't even try.  But I will try to do better as I move forward in this new effort.  I have already let it slip a few times and I am feeling a lot of pressure to do every day all of the things that I have on my mind.  In fact, I hardly know myself right now and although I do like what I do see, there seems to be so much more going on that I don't seem to notice much, because my mind is so full of stuff.  It seems that I have to force myself in everything and nothing comes normally to me.  I can't really explain it to myself, but I do feel like I am somehow on a higher plan, or at least putting out a lot more effort.  Maybe it will get easier over time, but right now it takes a lot of effort and I'm not used to that.  There is just so much more going on in my life, and I am trying to do so much more then I have done before.  Even my sleep time demands more from me and I am not yet used to giving and doing so much.  It gets very tiring.  But it is also strangely rewarding.  I actually think that I am really 'making a better me'.

I really took it easy today.  I didn't do 'nothing', but I watched a lot of football and some tennis, and I used the BYU game to do my hour of exercise so I felt pretty good, and I still have a bit of that 'glow' that gives me a feeling of well being.  I feel pretty good about my week and even better about the fact that my Monday is pretty much assured.  This week with the holiday ended up below my average, but next week looks to compensate, and bring me back to my average.  I was able to close out another week today.  One of the things about the day that was slacking was that I did not shower again, but tomorrow early will take care of that.  No mission tomorrow, but we will leave near the same time to go to Amy's baby blessing and then lunch at Shauni's and then our family home evening tomorrow night.  I should have a good night, and once I get up and going my Sunday should be pretty much about all that it can be.

Still trying to get used to this new format.  Right now I am so tired that I really don't want to do this, but I am going to do it because I need to.  Don't know exactly why though, but I am doing it regardless.  Yesterday I did mention our new car, and our future new neighbors.  I didn't mention Sheila's new job.  It is new because she is now a five hour lady instead of 3 and 1/2 and because of the new car I am getting up and taking her to work and picking her up at 12:30.  It does change my schedule some, but I don't mind it.  Our whole family is another year older now too.  Nicholas is back from his  mission and back in school at SVU (Southern Virginia University) and Cortney is well into her freshman year at Air Force, having gone through boot camp and stuff.  Linzi is coming up on her 1/2 way mark in a couple of months.  Later this month Lucas turns 8 and gets baptized.  All of the grand kids are just growing up all over the place.  As for us, well, we are getting older and hopefully wiser.  For myself, I like this stage of my life.  There is so much more for me to learn, and it does help to have already learned a lot.  I am really trying to understand myself.  I've known me for almost 68 years, but I do have a ways to go yet.  I am intrigued with this person who is me, and yet doesn't always seem like me.  And I am so grateful for Sheila  more and more everyday.  I was never smart enough to make that decision.  I know that I had help and there was more orchestration of that deal then I was aware of at that time, but now I see it more clearly and I couldn't be more thankful and thrilled.  And I am just beginning to understand what it means for our future.  Now that really excites, and humbles me!!

It is hard to form a habit.  It may be more difficult to get back into a habit that was once easy and long lived after you let it slide for several months.  Not only is the actual doing of the thing hard to do, but this particular period of my life has been so eventful that I hardly know where to start and how I can really do justice to everything.  I am sure that it will take several entries to really catch up I also have to get used to a new format.  When Robert updated my computer everything changed and some things are simply harder to get used to.  In fact, I have had to find or adjust several things that are different or were lost from the set-up that I had used for years.  And right now I am trying to get used to doing a lot of new things for the month of September.  I have been getting up early to take 

Sheila to work, which means that I pick her up at 12:30 p.m..  That has required an adjustment to my lunch schedule and has been a little hard to adjust to, that is, getting up near 6 each morning that she has to go to work.  One of the things that is new is our new (used) car.  We've had it about a month.  I will write more about it later.  The next major thing is that Shelli and Phil are going to buy the house next door, and will be our neighbors before Thanksgiving.  Phil finally got a new job and he works less then a mile away.  (Robert also started his new job on Tuesday.)  We extended our mission and

are now just in to our 2nd year.  I am trying to do things to prepare for my doctor's appointment in the 1st week or so into October.  I tested high in April for a certain thing and he had me come in July, and I am working on trying to lower it with my new regimen.   I am simply trying to improve in several different ways, and I am finding it quite demanding.  In fact, right now I am very tired and I need to finish and print this and get off to bed.  I will try to work harder and become more.  It is harder then I imagined that it would be.  But this is evidence that I am making some progress.

I finally did it.   I've been at this for several days trying to figure out how to recover my blog after the work that Robert did on my computer.  He brought it into this century and I  have been so pleased with it, except that we lost some things in the transition.  I have recovered most of the sites that I use in my work, but when I decided to start up my journal writing again I had a dickens of a time finding it (recovering it is the proper term).  I even resorted to asking Shelli for help earlier today, and she did put me on the right track.  When I had a minute and thought about it all I researched and finally found the pass word and sign up information the I had recorded way back in 2012.  With some better information and relying on the direction that Shelli had given I think I am where I want to be.  I'll know if this entry actually prints and if I have really saved (bookmarked) this site.  Oh, it is almost 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday on the 2nd of September, 2014!!!  I have so much catching up to do, but for now I will see if I am back where I want to be.

I've been waiting for the end of my Saturday to write and then go to bed.  Sheila and I just finished watching a movie that I recorded from a free preview a week ago.  It was the end of a pretty productive day for me.  We finally got out taxes finished and even mailed off, and I can't explain just how good it feels to have that task done and gone, and it didn't cost us near what I had been worried about early on.  Then I closed out my week (I'm only 2 weeks behind) and paid me (us).  That is good cause we have a big, big bill due this coming week.  I also had Sheila give me that badly needed hair cut this afternoon.  With all of that I feel good about my day.  But my doctor's visit from yesterday still weighs on me some.  Seems my ac-1 level tested higher then it has before.  I chose option exercise and better diet control over expensive drugs and have to see him again in July.  It was something more serious then I would have liked, but it is what it is.  So I need to be serious about it.  Seems my load can provide that 'spiritual traction', but I am still figuring out just what I need to do about it to make it work for me.  So much to do, and only 24 hours in a day to do it.  And getting older and more worn-out has to be figured in the equation.I figure I know almost enough to make it work.  Its the doing of it all that is the part that still requires me to do and be more and better.

I can't really call it 'back in the habit', but at least I am writing again.  I waited until near the end of my day which isn't what I was doing before, but I was trying so hard to make my day worthy of my General Conference commitment that I really have been busy most of the time until now.  (I did watch some the the NCAA championship game, but I also drove over to Sharon's early on before I got back and pretty much wound down my day's work.)  I feel good about my choices for the day, but naturally I did not have a 'perfect' day.  I left things undone, and I did waste some time, but my Tuesday is poised to be another productive day if I can do as well as I did today.  My mind is still filled with thoughts from the weekend and my own personal study has only been added to, so I am really trying hard to understand some truths that can only make me better.  I am doing a real in depth study about 'desire' and 'heart, might, mind and strength'.  D & C 4 is still pretty much my theme and there is so much there to learn even though I have had it memorized for months and have 'read' it now thousands of times.  I find that my personal barometer has changed.  My level of tolerance for certain kinds of behavior is so much less.  I cannot tolerate me doing or thinking stuff that used to be acceptable (for me).  I expect so much more of me now in the 'faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence' department (verse 6).  I find that really satisfying on the one hand, but somewhat aggravating on the other hand.  But it is all part of the journey and something that I have come to expect, especially just after General Conference. 

I know.  I know I skipped yesterday.  But there was a pretty good reason, and it was also my decision to wait until now (Sunday morning before 9:30 [and General Conference] on April 6th).  My whole routine got fouled up with it being Saturday, and General 

 Conference Saturday at that.  After immersing myself into 6 hours of deep study I felt so overwhelmed with all that was floating around in my head that I decided that I needed a night's sleep to allow for settling and sorting  and recharging.  So that is what I did.  Now I'm ready for 4 more hours of the same plus an evening with family and another night to sleep before I get back to my 'real' world on Monday morning.  There is so much going on in me.  I started with lots and yesterday added so much more.  Somehow I feel like I am new and better.  There is so much that I have to modify or discard like I am really, really seriously into this growing and changing thing.  And it seems to be happening faster and more then it ever has before.  I'm not sure that any of you can really understand what I am talking about as I can't myself.  But I am trying my best to put words to the way that I am feeling.  And by putting it down here it helps me, and if you get something out of it too, well, so much the better.  I plan on working really hard today at trying to absorb and understand what will be said, and seek for that special message which will be there just for me.  I pray the same for each of you, and I am excited about what comes now.

It's been so long that the computer had forgotten me.  I had to re-sign and almost didn't remember how to do this.  I have really fallen off at doing this,  and I could list so many excuses.  It really has been an interesting period of time in my life since January 22nd, but I can only blame myself for not keeping at it.  And today the thing that has gotten me here was thinking about our new grand daughter.  We drove down to the American Fork Hospital yesterday and visited with Shauni, Jeff and Amy.  The best word that I could come up with was 'surreal', but I am trying to find a better one.  For now I will just say that anytime we have had children or grandchildren it brings a certain, special kind of perspective that sure is different then regular moments.  It causes serious reflection, but even that word doesn't do it justice.  It just reminds me of something more and better and quite 'ungraspable'.  Anyway, I had Amy in mind when I decided that I need to do this again.  The number 31 doesn't quite compute for me either.  And, yes, I do remember all of their names.  Part of my recent past which I left unrecorded has been really, really confusing for me.  There is so much stuff going on in my life and in me that that feeling of being overwhelmed (which I have referred to before) has at times gotten the best of me.  I don't know any other way to describe it, but 'overwhelmed' doesn't adequately explain it for me.  That is part of the problem.  I can't really explain all that I am feeling.  Its like I am being stretched, filled and refined at an alarming rate.  And sometimes I just want it to stop, but not really, for it seems also to be just finally understanding it all.  It is so hard, so real and so 'overwhelming', but in such a good way.  I will close with my latest 'motto':  "Heavenly Father is used to working with imperfect people".

This is new day, a day for repenting, a day for change and a day to start over.  It has been months since I last wrote and I have to change my ways.  I can't waste time debating whether or not it does me good to write.  I simply have to do it and leave it at that.  It seems funny to me that I found a half hour to use during a time when I seem to have more on my plate then usual.  But I do so I  made a choice to use it this way.  I think I just made a bit of a booboo because in my effort to do something about my 50 year reunion I started a facebook thing that actually has Sheila's name on it instead of mine.  At least I am trying to do something.  Several weeks back I had called our class president to spur him into action but nothing happened.  Then I got a call last week from a class mate so I decided to do something.  My efforts to date are small, but at least it is a start.  (Imagine  50 years!!)

There has been lots of other stuff going on with work, the family and our mission.  Last Saturday Linzi went through the temple. Then yesterday Shelli and Phil sent Toby away.  Robert and Cicily are going to be moving quite close over the next 2 weeks. And Cortney is carrying her team.  I filled out my calendar for February and listed the state tournament in the last week.  One thing that has been consistent for me whether I was writing or not has been my schooling.  I consider myself a forever student, and my lessons have been ongoing.  Just ask me about my 'curriculum'.  Oh, I forgot about the trip to vegas for the 'girls' and the overnight drive home so Sherri and Sheila and I could be there for Russ' setting apart.  I find it hard to accept the fact that January is almost history.  And in just two weeks our 45th will be here.  I wonder if we can figure some nice way to celebrate it.  There is so much on my mind:  HMMS is my new watchword and is on my mind lots.  It stands for a new and higher plateau for  me, and as with any 'new and higher plateau' there are some stretching pains that come too.  But it seems the way that it needs to be, seeing as how I am now closer to my end then I am to my beginning!