Tame & Wild Olive Trees

I've been reading in Jacob 5 about the allegory of the tame and wild olive trees. Here are a few verses: ********** 21 And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard. ********** 22 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto him: Counsel me not; I knew that it was a poor spot of ground; wherefore, I said unto thee, I have nourished it this long time, and thou beholdest that it hath brought forth much fruit. ********** 23 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Look hither; behold I have planted another branch of the tree also; and thou knowest that this spot of ground was poorer than the first. But, behold the tree. I have nourished it this long time, and it hath brought forth much fruit; therefore, gather it, and lay it up against the season, that I may preserve it unto mine own self. ********** I have many thoughts about this. The Lord of the vineyard planted it in a poor spot. When the tree notices how poor the spot is, is the tree allowed to be angry? Is it ok for the tree to think "Why did I get planted in such a poor spot?" We found out that another tree has been planted in a poorer spot than they so there's somebody worse off. Does that mean they are then only allowed to feel gratitude because it could be worse? It could always be worse. The tree doesn't have all the support and nourishment that most other trees have but the Lord of the vineyard says it's ok because he nourishes it and cares for it. Does the tree appreciate that but sometimes long to know what it would be like to have the nourishment of the ground that it's surrounded in, that it can see and feel around it every day? The tree brings forth much fruit. This proves by the Lord of the vineyard that poor ground doesn't guarantee poor results but will this tree always bring forth much fruit? Is there a day when the tree feels like even with the nourishment from the Lord of the vineyard, without the nourishment of all the tree is growing in day-to-day, they don't feel capable of bringing forth much fruit anymore? Does the tree being angry ruin the tree or can the tree contain the anger to some extent while still continuing to bring forth much fruit? Is the Lord of the vineyard glad he planted the tree? Would he be glad if it stopped bringing forth fruit? Was there truly a grand purpose or was it an experiment? Also, will the tree ever get to feel what it's like to be nourished by both the Lord of the vineyard and the ground all around it? Obviously, this isn't much about a tree to me. These verses have never meant to me what they do now but I wish I could answer all of these other questions as well.

What it's like to have Covid

I found out today that I tested positive for Covid-19. I wanted to write what my experience has been like. It's been very manageable for me but I certainly would never minimize the Covid experience because others have struggled greatly with it.

I don't know many people personally that have tested positive (I know a few but not really well) and many people I know have not known many people with Covid so I just share details to share information. I have been moderately cautious for the last several months. I wear a mask into any place I go and sanitize every time I return to the car. I do go to the store more than I did in the early-on Covid days but still less than most people I know. I still don't enjoy going to stores at this time and avoid it to some extent but I don't refuse to go or anything like that. Symptoms...last Tuesday, I felt really nauseated.

I had had a migraine for several days in a row and aspirin was not doing anything whatsoever. I get migraines kind of a lot and aspirin never helps but it was unusual for me to have a migraine for several days in a row.

I started getting a fever

and suddenly my muscles just ached really bad. It wasn't typical muscle aches for me. Even my eye muscles were so sore that blinking or looking in another direction were painful. My muscles were so sore that I could never get fully comfortable, even sitting or laying down. I had the chills and couldn't get warm.

The thought of exercising felt horrible and overwhelming. My skin was incredibly sensitive. If somebody lightly brushed their hand against my skin, it felt like they had pushed on a bruise. I ended up having a fever for 4 days straight, just a little over 100 degrees. If I took Tylenol, it would break but as soon as the meds wore off, the fever was right back. I've never had a fever for more than 24 hours before so this was a first. That's it. I did nothing on Tuesday and Wednesday and felt horrible. On Thusday, when the dog started getting depressed, I was deeply concerned. I pulled out my kit of homeopathic medicines.

There were several things I'd never tried before, such as Blessed Waters and an RCL tincture. I put a few drops of several things in water and drank it. The fever kept on but my muscles felt better within hours. That made me take courage in my attitude and it was the twist of events that I needed. I felt like I could beat this. I took my dog for a walk, which fixed his depression and felt pretty good to me, too. It was a slightly slower pace but it was great. On Friday, I felt even better but still had the fever. I still walked the dog. I stayed very busy because I felt like being productive again. On Saturday, my fever broke and I felt like I was starting to get back to normal. Now I feel pretty great but just need to quarantine to keep everybody safe.

I haven't heard much about the nausea or the skin sensitivity but that was what my experience has been like. I don't know if the homeopathic stuff helped alot or if it was the mental power of thinking I was doing something to help but that did seem to help things take a turn for the better. That about covers it.

The Best Boyfriend

Once upon a time, my family kept pressuring me to get a dog. I said, "No way! I can't even think about a dog until I don't have kids in diapers." One day, I no longer had kids in diapers and the next day (or so it seems), each member of the family inquired, "Now can we get a dog? Can we?" I didn't really want a dog. I had met a neighbor that had 2 very sweet dogs that were dachshunds and so I had at least decided that if we did get one, that's what it would be. To shorten the story, when we went to pick a dog, the puppy seller gave us a really great deal if we would get two dogs so that a brother and sister could stay together and we fell for it! We surprised our kids with Dazzle (the girl)

and Sly (the boy).

I had set out not really wanting a dog at all and getting two dogs but I also got a surprise. Out of nowhere, Sly just would wait for me all of the time with endless patience, show me so much joy when he saw me, and give me his undivided attention in every moment. Whatever decision I made, he not only supported me on but acted like I was fantastic for choosing that. Go for a walk? Brilliant!!! Do some yardwork? Perfect!!! Watch a show together? Genius!!! Somebody joked that he was a good little boyfriend and that phrase stuck. I started saying he was the best boyfriend I ever had and with those qualities, he really was. On top of that, he was so respectful. He never even pressured me for a kiss-ha ha. It was real unconditional love. As the dogs were puppies, things were fine but after having Dazzle & Sly for quite some time, the dogs' hair started changing and my youngest son was severely allergic. He kept breaking out in alarming hives all over his body. I took him to a doctor. I took him to an allergy specialist. We talked about the options. I was worried about how young he was as far as putting him on meds long-term. We couldn't really work out a good solution that seemed to provide relief right away at a price we could afford and in a manner we were comfortable with so we made the difficult decision to let the dogs go to another home. We still tried to keep them together but I was heartbroken about it. A little miracle happened. A couple came to look at the dogs with their kids and it turned out I had gone to high school with both of them and knew they were very good people. They had great kids and one of their kids had worked very hard to save up much of the money for buying the dogs. We even went to their house once just to see the dogs in their new environment and have the peace of mind to know they were in a very good home. It was hard to lose the dogs but the circumstances for it were the best possible ones. It's been many years since we've had them now and I was aching for a dog. My son had many various allergies over the years and we had found ways to deal with them so I thought that was under control. I knew that not just any dog would do. Dachshunds kind of steal my heart. I looked up puppies for several months, I think it was at least 4 months. There were many little cuties but nothing that I couldn't resist, until I saw Charlie. Isn't it weird how you just know? I just knew it had to be him and everything moved along smoothly and we brought him home. He attached to us quickly

His personality, for the most part, has been a great fit for our family. There have been a few really stressful days with him. At first, I felt really guilty about being stressed because I kept thinking, "Well, I'm the one who wanted a dog." I then realized that when we get stressed about children, we don't feel guilty about that and think, "Well, I'm the one that wanted a kid." Things that require a long-term commitment can stress us out at times and that's ok. The good days outnumber the bad ones. Now that it's almost been 2 months with him, I'm reflecting on how it's gone. He is very good and fun. He's different than Sly. Sly tried very hard to make me happy. Charlie just wants me to try very hard to make him happy. My happiness is not his concern. Maybe some of Charlie's disregard is just part of the puppy stage and he'll grow out of it but even if not, he's still a fantastic dog. He's really good and fun at fetch and tug-of-war, he's a great walking companion (terrible running companion because he outskills me and acts erratic trying to deal with that), he's really good at adjusting his sleep schedule to mine, and he's a great buddy to watch shows with. I guess just like kids, no two are much alike and it's an adjustment to learn the ins and outs of their personality. I'm happy to have a dog again.

Why no mask?

This might be silly but there has been a lot out there about wearing facemasks and somebody posted why won't people just wear them? tonight and this was my response: I want to give a simple answer but let me explain it like this: If I were to say, "I don't believe they help" and leave it at that, you would think, "well, actually, they do help. I've seen statistics from This Credible Organization or listened to the science from This Trusted Person" but what if I have seen just as compelling information from sources I trust? If we are both using information and personal experience to make a decision and act on it, aren't we both right and doing something good? I have seen many posts on here (Facebook) about giving dirty looks or making snarky comments to somebody without a mask on and everybody cheers. Are we really treating a fellow human being with disdain after knowing only one fact about them (they don't have a mask on) and it's not only acceptable to do that but it's applauded? Many things in the world today are dividing us more than ever and giving us an Us vs. Them mentality. The longer social media is around, the less admirable it is to do your own research and form your own opinions and the more pressure is applied to be like everybody else. For example, it's not enough just to be opposed to racism and to act accordingly but now you have to attend a protest or contribute to some organization or publicly declare your thoughts on the matter X-number of times, etc. There is this most amazing Podcast, called The Happiness Lab. All the episodes are good but if you listen to The War for Kindness, it talks about the Us Vs. Them mentality taking over right now and they are more fun & eloquent than I can be. I do not wear a mask very often. I do on some occasions but not all the time just because a bunch of people tell me I should. I wash my hands a lot, don't go to the store very often (it turns out milk is NOT actually a necessity-ha ha), and practice social distancing to the best of my ability. When I'm at the store without my mask and find other people (probably the same ones giving me those angry looks for not wearing a mask) cannot seem to grasp the concept of social distancing because they brush my arm and seem to be all up in my face as I get a few tomatoes on a trip to the store I've delayed for 2 weeks, my first instinct is to think, "You idiot! Don't you know what social distancing is?" and then I look at them and realize that's somebody's sister and somebody's daughter and somebody's friend. They are my neighbor really and we might not be doing everything the same way but we are probably both doing the best we can.

Looking Back

2 years ago today, I was with my family at Niagara Falls. I had spent a few years wanting to take my family to the Sacred Grove but didn't know how to do it financially. I can honestly say I prayed diligently about it and a way opened up. It took a lot of time and hard work, as answers often do. We fixed up a house we had been renting out and sold it and we had enough money to get a new heater/AC for the house (which is never how somebody wants to spend $17,000 but we were lucky to have a way to pay it) and we found a tour group we chose to go with to see some church history sites because we priced out going on our own and it would cost MUCH more. Our first day was amazing. We loved the falls.

We went to many church history sites and learned much. I read D&C to the kids before we went and I found much of it very unsettling, especially when it came to financial details. In my mind, I had this whole list of issues that I never had until I read all of those scriptures. I was nervous going because I had nagging concerns but the trip changed my life. Every question I had was answered and something about being there, learning about the day-to-day lives of the saints, seeing their homes, and hearing how grateful the early saints were to sacrifice for the cause made everything fall into place in a way that I could understand and appreciate. Words sometimes can't do what being there and seeing things with your own eyes can do. I had a very humbling experience. This is the kids at the Sacred Grove.

The pinnacle of our journey was going to the Sacred Grove. It meant everything to me. We had a tour guide that never shut up and made the days a little long and we struggled a bit with him. I thought things would be different for the grove. Nope. He packed a microphone in and talked for a while but did say he'd give us a little quiet time to think and reflect. I thought "Hallelujah!" Maybe 2 minutes later he started talking again and wouldn't stop. I felt really mad. Our daughter was really mad. I decided we shouldn't let him determine what our Sacred Grove experience was like so we just left the group and walked out far enough that we couldn't hear him anymore and we had our own Sacred Grove moments. Eventually, people in the group left the main site and were walking around and we went back when it was quiet and peaceful. I had imagined lots of quiet time for reflection and a certain reverence about the whole experience. It wasn't so much that.

Hearing him drone on constantly with no quiet time to absorb and process was not a good fit for me. In the moment, the trip was not very enjoyable overall. Every day was exhausting. I cried on the plane ride home and wondered why that had to be my experience there and the experience my kids had when I had been hoping to help them with their testimonies. Now that it's been 2 years, I can see the trip very differently. First of all, the Sacred Grove experience just plain wasn't ideal. There is no way around that. However, I realized that most of the revelations and experiences Joseph Smith had were FAR from ideal and that never thwarted anything. I thought about the little ways over the years that I've gotten and strengthened my testimony and most of it is not ideal. Testimonies are born in poor and undesirable conditions. Not only can I make peace with what our experience turned out to be like, I'm genuinely grateful for it.

I was overwhelmed with information at the time but now as I look back, I remember quite a bit. We saw where Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph in his home. We sat in the School of the Prophets. Not only did we tour the Kirtland Temple but we talked to a couple of religious leaders there (that are like our quorum of the 70) and had fantastic and enlightening conversations. We saw the home Emma Smith came from and several of the places she lived after marrying Joseph. We saw the Grandin Printing Press, where the first Book of Mormons were printed. We went to Harmony, Pennsylvania and saw where the Aaronic Priesthood was restored. We went to where it's believed the Melchizedek Priesthood was restored. We stood on the banks of the Susquehanna River and even got to stop and enjoy a brief time in Amish Country. It was an incredible experience to have had! We went to the Hill Cumorah and my boys rolled down the hill. A group of youth was there and some of them rolled down the hill and even complained about getting grass stains and I loved that! I can't believe our trip was 2 years ago but I'm so glad we had the chance to do it and even though I wasn't thrilled at the time, in the long-run it became a memorable thing to have done.

Great Speech

I listened to this great speech by Josh Clark, the host of Stuff You Should Know. It's for the graduating class this year & I looked for the words but couldn't find them so I did my best to transcribe it myself and here it is: Dear Students, congratulations on reaching this point in your life. It's a big deal & you should be proud of yourself. Now that you've gotten here, I've come to fill you in on a little secret. You've been told practically your whole life now how special you are...& that is true. You are special. You are unique & you're important. But your parents & teachers haven't been telling you the whole truth all of your life. They've only been showing you a part of the bigger picture.

Surely you've noticed hints of this..like when you got older and suddenly the stories they told in history class began to get a lot darker. They told the same stories when you were younger. They just arranged the picture without ALL of the pieces to keep you from truly understanding and perhaps you resented it when you realized the whole truth had been kept from you. That's understandable. Most of us do feel that way. But don't waste your time stewing on this. Each generation does it to the next.

They think it protects the young when really, it just keeps things as they are. The important thing here is to learn from that experience because people are going to continue to do this to you your whole life. People will try to lay out the pieces that fit together to make the picture THEY want you to see. It's a way to get people to do what you want them to and throughout your life, you will get this from all sorts of people: people you're friends with, people you love, people on television, people on the internet, people running your government, people running other people's government. Your actions & your thoughts are powerful and influential and people want to sway them. This means that you will have to learn to think for yourself. Do your own research. Seek out people who are experts on the topic. Talk to other people. In this day & age, it's not enough to trust your eyes or ears. You have to put in work to find the truth.

Don't be lazy. Find the truth. It's not necessarily what's on the news. It's also not necessarily in some video that says the news is lying. Always remember this: whatever someone is showing you, they're probably only showing you part of the picture. It's up to you to fill in the rest of the pieces that make up the whole truth and maybe you'll never find it. That's okay. It will be exhausting to spend your life constantly searching for the truth, constantly paranoid that every person you speak to is manipulating you. Don't do that. That's not what life is about and people aren't that mean at their core. Most people don't even realize they're showing you an incomplete picture and usually they're not doing it for nefarious purposes when they do. Instead, the vast majority of people are just passing along an incomplete picture that someone else showed them.

This happens a lot. It's a big problem. So to keep from dying from exhaustion by age 30, all haggard and paranoid and upset, do two things. 1. Decide if something is important enough to you or the world to search out the missing pieces to find the truth of the matter. Sometimes all it takes is an effective google search and taking the time to read a couple of reliable articles. But remember that even if you do search high & low, you may never find the truth about whatever it is you're trying to understand so it better be important if you're going to go looking for the truth of a matter. 2. If it's not important, shrug it off. You will never know everything. You'll never know most things. Some things will be important enough for you to search for. Most will not be. If you decide it's not that important then, and this is really important, don't pass along the incomplete picture to others. When you do that, you're shaping someone else's view of things. They trust you. They know you're a good person with the good of the world at heart so why would you lie? Throughout your life, people will listen to what comes out of your mouth so be careful that you believe in what you say. Back to what I was saying before about your parents and teachers giving you an incomplete picture. I hope you understand a little better now that they don't mean any harm by it. They might think they were protecting you all these years by keeping ugly truths from you. But those ugly truths, as hard as they can be to take, are what allow us to grow as people. If you see a beautiful flower, you admire it and are glad that it's there. If you see a weed growing though, you pull it but if the people around you are telling you that the weed you're seeing is actually a flower, it's hard to know otherwise and it's even harder to know that the weed should be pulled.

Remember that your parents and teachers weren't lying to you because they wanted to deceive you. Their parents and their teachers showed them pictures of weeds that grow in our world and told them that they were flowers, too.

And their parents' parents and their teachers' teachers told them. Some weeds have been called flowers for so long that no matter what you say to some people, they will fight you tooth & nail that the weed is a flower.

That's their truth and people are deeply protective of what they hold to be true, even when it's not true at all. Part of the reason they'll fight and argue with you when you tell them a flower is actually a weed is just simple laziness. It takes a lot more effort to pull a weed than it does to pretend it's a flower. But the bigger reason they'll argue is because they don't want to believe they've been wrong all this time. The thing is no matter how long everyone's called a weed a flower, there's some aspects to a weed that a flower doesn't have that will always give a weed away, like hurting people. If something that people you know say is a flower harms other people, it's really a weed. Weeds can hurt people in all kinds of ways.

Maybe they give rights to some people but not to others. Maybe they make it so some people have more wealth or power than they could ever possibly use while some people have so little they can barely scrape by. Other weeds may get so that when some people hurt other people, or other life or the planet, they don't get in trouble for it. If you suspect a flower is really a weed and you look at it closely enough, you'll see that the people who say it's a flower are the ones who get all the benefits from it. You'll also find there's a whole other group of people out there who've been calling it a weed all this time.

It's just that nobody's listened to them and sometimes it's even worse than that. Sometimes those people are told that their own flowers are weeds. So what does all of this have to do with you being special and unique? Excellent question and actually, that's the whole point of everything. It's not a lie that you are special & unique. You are both of those things. But not simply because you're you as you've been led to believe all these years. That's an incomplete picture of the whole truth. You are special and unique because you are born a human being. All human beings are special & unique, not just as individuals but the whole human race. Every one of us is special. Every one of us is unique and the same goes not just for human beings but for all living things.

Life is special and in this way, every single person that you will ever meet in your entire life is as valuable and worthwhile as you are. Some of these other people that you'll meet will disagree with you and some of them may harm you. Just because a person is unique & special, doesn't mean they're good. But as hard as it can be to remember sometimes, never forget that on the whole, human beings are generally good. They generally care about each other. They generally want what's best and most just. Don't forget that humanity is generally good. It's just that sometimes other people don't recognize a flower as really a weed.

CORONA-TINED

Just wanted to write about my personal experience with quarantine & COVID-19. The first big experience was that our boys stopped going to school. I loved this. I like having them home. We've done homeschool & enjoyed it. This was not that. This is having teachers assign a bunch of assignments of their choice & you just have to enforce the assignments, no matter how much sense they make or don't make. Some teachers were great right away and some teachers acted like the only possible thing you should focus on should be their class. It never even seemed to enter their consciousness that your student would have other classes or that you might have multiple kids. I reached out to some & tried to find a better solution. Surprisingly enough (dripping sarcasm), the teachers that assigned the most unreasonable amount and kinds of assignments were the least flexible in finding other solutions.

Some of the curriculum my kids were being exposed to (especially for high school) was alarming but being home gave us a chance to have discussions about it and I was grateful for the chance to address some of the propaganda that infiltrates the curriculum. Because we were close to grades for the quarter, we kind of just rolled over & played along, trying to salvage grades for the quarter. It was incredibly stressful to help manage 15 classes (& I realize other households had much more than this to manage). I did try to leave much of it up to my boys but they struggled to know how to manage it, especially when there were so many different programs-Canvas, Google Classroom, Math XL, etc., etc. As I saw my boys getting no credit for some of their assignments that I watched them do, I'd delve into it and find you had to go so many layers in just to correctly submit things & just the navigating of programs was a nightmare for me as an adult, let alone them. Teachers weren't even using the same programs or systems and it was very chaotic. People kept posting on social media about all these fun places you could go to learn online & I wondered who had time to choose any of their learning? We were starting school around 8 a.m. and finishing up around 4 p.m. & I'd try to feed everybody and go to work and we'd do it again the next day. There was no free time or choosing what we were learning. Once 3rd quarter was over, I thought that pace was not sustainable and we weren't happy. Luckily, other households weren't doing perfectly and teachers, even the crazy ones, were kind of forced to ease up at least a little. I honestly told my 7th grader that I wanted him working & learning but that it was up to him. 7th grade doesn't count so why stress ourselves out? I care about learning but not about doing it in only one way to fit one person's expectations. I do expect him to learn & I make sure he's working on school but I encourage him to explore personal interests for part of the day and he tells me what he learned. Assignments that are nothing but pointless busy work that he doesn't get done, I don't push him on too much. I mention it so he knows that I know he didn't do it but I tell him that he has to make some choices about his education. For my high schooler, he likes knowing what my minimum expectations are for him and his teachers have really come together to make the work load reasonable so I will just write a list of what assignments he has to finish and he can come to me for any help or support that he needs. Some days he gets done fast and independently and some days take a long time & require hours and hours of help but everything feels much more balanced. I don't explore all the fun learning sites that people share. There are many sites that look pretty cool but everybody stays busy enough with what we have that we're not bored & wondering what else to do. That's been our experience with school.

In general, I have chosen to approach all of this with cautious optimism. Don't contribute to the problem but don't obsess about the problem either. We sanitize & wash. We socially distance ourselves. We do what we can to be responsible. However, we don't get too carried away. I'm a news junkie & I just stopped reading or watching the news. It's easy to get too wrapped up and pulled in many directions. I know this approach isn't for everybody. Many people who never watched the news are now the news junkies and we've switched. For me, turning off the news is one of the easiest things I can do to stay centered and feel peace. I feel like for me, it allows me to embrace faith and dispel fear. I still hear plenty about it. I spend a few minutes a day on social media & I have a job & I listen to podcasts (none that say they're dealing with coronavirus but it slips into most everyday podcasts anyway) so I still hear plenty about what's going on. I just choose not to be afraid. Fear has never prevented or cured an illness before so why pull that dark cloud over us? It serves no purpose. The one choice I've made that people have mixed feelings about is not to wear a mask. I put a scarf in my car so if our state forces us to have our faces covered, I have preparations in place to legally comply but I won't use it until forced to. At work, there is a very small percentage of us that leave our faces uncovered. The CDC at one point told us NOT to wear masks and now they say to yes, wear them and I feel like it's weird that so many immediately comply without question. I doubt the efficiency of wearing masks and I have glasses that just fog up with a mask on so I just choose not to do it. I don't mind if others feel better wearing them. If that small thing offers another human the smallest bit of comfort, then more power to them. I do my best to keep distances with people at work. I have no desire to make anybody else feel uncomfortable. I do try to act in a responsible way but also make some of my own choices where I safely can make them and I just try to lead as normal of a life as possible without focusing on or feeling afraid of the corona virus. I realize how much I miss being out & about, taking the kids to movies, and going on just-for-fun strolls through different stores. However, I feel so incredibly lucky that the people I love most are around every day and I see a LOT of them! For what it's worth, that's what our experience has been.

Literal Sweet Revenge

I started a new job for the postal service 3 weeks ago. I get to work with my daughter, which is the best! So far, it's just been training full time and tonight we are out of training but on probation for a little over 2 more months. We had to work days for all of the training and I feel like our lives got really shaken up by that. My husband, who is pretty much the best!, took over the whole time on home duties. He made sure our boys got to school and he worked from home many of those days so that he could accommodate our oldest son's at-home classes and back-and-forth schedule.

The job is surprisingly demanding. It's typing addresses but you have to type at a very productive speed for hours & hours and you learn so many rules as to how to type the addresses. It gets confusing and it's overwhelming to adjust to. However, it gets easier over time. I know that because I have done this job before prior to having children. You know it's been a long time though if now I have a child old enough to work there. It used to be in a different building and many things have changed from 20 years ago! I remember very little from doing it before and a good portion of what I do remember has changed now.

We've had many trainers throughout our time there and I've done my best not to annoy any of them. I will write about trainers I like and then the one that bothered me most. The first trainer who made a huge difference to me is Russ. I had gone through a little bit of trauma from one of the trainers and was considering quitting. The next day, I was assigned to Russ. There are things that I could not avoid having issues with, such as computer problems. The only thing I do with the computer is log on and off. I don't mess with any other thing so I could not have caused the problems. He had to help me 3 times in a short amount of time and I apologized and he just said, "Are you in training?" and of course, I said yes and he responded, "Perfect! Because my job is to help you complete that training. As many times as you need help will be as many times as I'm happy to be of help and I will never mind or be bothered by you trying to do your job because that's what gives me the opportunity to do my job." He talked to me at another time, giving me some background as to his patient approach and his professional background in general. When I struggled to learn certain rules & kept making the same mistakes on my testing, he always responded with, "Well, let's see what we can learn," which I thought was a very positive approach to my mistakes. I can't think of a better experience I could have had that day. Nobody else was ever quite as patient or dedicated to training as him but I only got to have him for one day. My daughter was sad because she never got to have him so at least I got one day. There was another trainer, Nicole. No matter how many times you asked her questions or for clarifications, she always said, "That's a good question" or "I'm glad you asked that." Those simple phrases made you feel totally comfortable approaching her with anything and like she had time for you. There was another trainer who's name I don't know that cheered everybody on constantly and got very silly one afternoon, which made me think the best about her. The other trainers showed varying levels of helpfulness and approachability.

For a side note, although I did work for the post office before doing this job, they consider you a re-hire only if you've worked there in the last 5 years, which I have not. I'll end with Karen. This was the first trainer I was exposed to and she's the one I had most often. I tend to be very independent. I found ways to do my training and learning early on that didn't require much help from her. Me not calling her over for help regularly meant that when I failed a test (which you are designed to fail & fail & fail & fail because the information gets drilled in your head so many times from failing that when you finally succeed, it means the information is sinking in well), without her re-setting the computer system, I had to do a ridiculous amount of practice & re-training before I could re-test. If I called her over every single time I failed, she could have re-set the system so I could skip the practice stuff and just re-test but I felt like it would be annoying to call her over so many times. After a couple times, I just did the extra work and took the 200-scenario test over and over and over, including 75 practice scenarios in between every test. I was on a good pace so I wasn't worried about getting behind and I felt like my system made it possible not to bother her very much. She somehow found out I had worked for the post office before because when I did pass one of my tests, which has to be signed off, she said, "This must all be coming back to you now, right?" I was surprised she had found out and I mentioned it had been so long that I really had to re-learn. This is the point where she seemed to change and I'm not sure why. There was a front side of paper for all the testing we had to pass off and a back side. On my last test on the front side, Karen was on lunch and another lady was in the training room. She announced that she didn't want to be there and did a big, annoyed sigh every time somebody needed a test signed off. I had her come sign off the test and thought I would have to do things from the back side but at that point, she told me to read some things and then sent me to another trainer, out on the regular floor outside of the training room, who didn't tell me anything other than how to log on and a couple random facts, which had no context to me at the time, and then when I asked a few questions, he told me I was keying live mail now. If I could go back, I would have done things very differently but you don't know what you don't know. I felt so confused and lost and unsure of what the next few weeks would look like for me there. When Karen came back, I asked her a few questions, trying to get information about my transition so I could be successful at it and once she found out I had already been logged into live mail, she just started screaming at me and shooed me out of the training room without answering one single question. My trainer outside of the room just talked in circles without answering any of my questions, too, although he didn't yell at me. The next day as I stood at the only time clock I had ever used, Karen stood there with us for 5 minutes before we could clock in but when I went to clock in, she took the opportunity to scream at me in front of everybody for clocking in near the people still in initial training. When I asked her where I should clock in instead, she just screamed but again, wouldn't even answer my question.

I don't respond too well to being yelled at, especially if I'm just seeking the minimum amount of information necessary to be successful at my job. Also I felt like I had put trust in her to train me and had been a good trainee but the second I wanted an answer to a question, she didn't just not answer but she unleashed a torrent of wrath upon me and I felt betrayed. I made do though and eventually figured out the minimum amount of information I needed to know so I could at least get by. There was a day that everybody was supposed to be getting information on the successful ergonomics of the job and all the how-tos of working there. I looked forward to a break from typing very much. She came up to me the day before and told me I couldn't go to it because I'd worked there before. I reminded her it was 20 years ago and I really needed the information. She screamed at me, in front of everybody again, that I was being so stupid for wanting to go and that there was no reason for me to go. I gave some push-back anyway because I will stand up for myself when things are this ridiculous. She told me she'd talk to the probation supervisor and make sure I couldn't go. The next day, I was told that I wouldn't be allowed to go. I went to the probation supervisor myself to push and I basically found out Karen was so adamant about me not getting the training that everybody was convinced and wouldn't budge on the decision. I typed all day while every other person from my training spent the whole day learning how to succeed at every aspect of the job there. When I found out what they learned, including how to attend our audits and how to request time off and how to do job requirements we are not taught in training, I felt a little angry that nobody taught me how to do any of that. Those are things that could be really helpful to know. The only reason I didn't quit then is that my daughter is there & got to go to the training and she'll try her best to help me figure out those things. Nobody from the company taught me those basic things that any employee there would need to be able to do their job.

By this time, I had learned there's a table in our break room where people put out whatever they want to give away. I've seen food there, coupons, crafting supplies, audio books, magazines, serving trays, etc. I bought several cases of cookies from a company close to my work. I got a great deal but couldn't fit all of them in our freezers so I thawed two cases of oatmeal raisin cookies and sent a case with my husband to work and took a case to our work to leave on the table. It was 240 cookies. My daughter pointed out that one of the first people to really swarm the cookies was Karen. She kept saying, "Mom-you have to look!" I looked over and sure enough, she was grabbing at cookies like a kid in the candy store, a kid who fights off all the other kids to get the most candy. I thought how funny it is that she did all she could to ruin my experience there yet she was quick as can be to grab all the free cookies she could get her hands on that I brought. We laughed and laughed and joked about me walking up to her to say snarky things like, "Karen. I'm glad you enjoyed those cookies so much. Did you know I brought them? You sure do like the things I bring." Later in the week, I thawed a case of chocolate chip cookies and brought in. It was pretty much a repeat of before with Karen leading the pack in grabbing for and hoarding cookies and then walking around so proud of herself for her haul. I brought you those cookies, Karen. When I want to feel mad, I will just think of you acting like what matters most in life is getting a lot of free cookies. I will laugh and the anger will just drift away because I will be laughing too much to be angry. That's what I call sweet revenge.

Fighting Injustice

Today I saw the movie Just Mercy with one of my sons and it was incredible and powerful and riveting! It made me think about injustice. The show is about one injustice and each of us is exposed to countless injustices in different areas over time.

I believe every person on the earth is compelled to fight some kind of injustice in their life. We all fight for different things. For instance, my neighbor has 3 kids who have been harmed by vaccines so she fights for the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate our kids and she cares about other things, but that is the injustice she invests the most resources into.

The injustice I feel most compelled to fight is our education system. I feel strongly, do all I can to stay up-to-date on changes in the system, and even choose political candidates based most strongly on their views and plans for education. I fight for my own children by always providing them alternatives. They have used public school, homeschool, a charter school, online schools, packets, and a hybrid of options and I'm always open to tweaking things if what they try doesn't work. I talk to them all the time about what education really means and refuse to accept somebody else completely defining it for us or forcing us to do it a certain way.

I feel like I fight the education injustice in society by substitute teaching in my district. Getting into the classrooms allows me to get an up-front seat to what's really going on and it allows me small moments to make things better or offer encouragement or teach students new ways to do things or reasons to do things they don't want to do. Many students are not receptive and many moments in a classroom are not golden opportunities for progress but the golden opportunities don't come without the days that it seems like a hopeless road.

Other people fight other injustices: in the legal system, with foster care, in the growth and development of cities, and in hundreds of other ways. Some people are born with disabilities that render them unable to talk or unable to move and even they fight the injustice of those who judge them too quickly.

You don't have to use words to fight an injustice. It can be done in many ways. Some people do feel compelled at one point and choose not to do anything about it. That is a choice they get to make. However, if we each take up one problem we see and work to improve it, that can make a difference. The other thing I couldn't stop thinking about is this: Is life fair in heaven? We struggle greatly here & we all see things that just aren't right!!! It's hard to imagine a time when all the things that aren't right end but wouldn't all the people in heaven have pure & good motives? Is that enough to end injustice? I would imagine everybody is educated enough that racism is over, sexism is over, greed & selfishness should be over. A cutthroat mentality is over. Striving to be accepted and to have needs met would be over.

I believe that injustice would be over but there are so many factors we swim in here that it's hard to imagine a time or place where all of those factors disappear and justice prevails. But if does feel good to take a few moments and imagine a time and place where all the injustices of human existence disappear and love, justice, & beauty prevail!

Manly

An idea that I've seen surface a lot in the last 1-2 years is what it means to be a man or to be manly. Part of my family & I just finished the 4th season of 60 Days In. There are several instances between the father, Matt, & his son, Andrew, that kind of address the idea of what it means to be a man. The dad clearly thinks it means a certain thing and the son thinks it means another and there's a change in the dad's thinking after the show and during a later discussion.

A discussion started at our house and included my daughter's boyfriend, who immediately claimed nobody sees him and thinks he's manly. He asked me if I did and I said I actually do because being manly is just being a man but trying to be responsible about it. Who's not manly? Somebody who rapes or somebody who abuses and manipulates others. Somebody who doesn't play sports though, is not immediately unmanly. They just have their own interests. Somebody who isn't big or can't win a fight can still be manly. I used to think some of those things weren't manly but they were still acceptable. It takes time to change our perception and sometimes we do kind of make judgments that are not in line with the ways we try to progress. I hope to see perspectives in general open up to a broader and more humane version of what it means to be manly.