Cerebrate Good Times

I don't normally get political on here, for three reasons. 1. It's boring. 2. I lack the patience to truly think through all the nuances of a well-reasoned debate. 3. I'm not sure anyone was ever convinced to change their views based on something presented by another person. (Prove me wrong!) But here we go. I'll try to keep it brief. My political background: I grew up in a white, Republican household in Utah. Not surprisingly, I inherited values considered conservative: traditional families, limiting governmental power, all that. My first job out of college was working with a company that lists strongly to the Tea Party side of things. When Obama was elected I genuinely thought it was a disaster. Then I left the company and started having more conversations with people. And I'm confused about these two ideas. 1. Conservatives in this country tend to identify themselves as  Christian. 2. They don't espouse the ideals that I think Jesus himself would a...

I have a few friends who have consistent health issues. These are things that impact their lives every day, and that often create a cycle of even worse health. For example, they develop a chronic illness and are physically unable to exercise. Over time this leads to things like gaining weight, which causes more systemic issues, and there is simply no opening for them to begin doing things that can make them healthier. I have still never experienced anything like that. But I felt that last year I gained a little empathy for people about whom I might previously have judged for not making changes in their life. For a while I had a bunch of colds and persistent sinus infections, and bronchitis for perhaps a few months. Most of the time I continue to run when I have a cold, and I've been fine. But for weeks I kept having horrible coughing fits after exercising. I began to suspect a form of asthma, and my doctor did refer me to a pulmonologist. Eventually I got better, and decided not ...

Fair warning: If you're not LDS, this post may not make any sense to you at all. Find a member of the church to interpret for you. A couple weeks ago in sacrament meeting our stake high council representative read a letter telling us that our stake was realigning boundaries and creating two new wards. A meeting the next Sunday evening would give us the details. That made me sad, because our ward was essentially the combination of two different neighborhoods, and the odds were they would be split up. Most of the friends we had made were in the other area. Later the rumor was that one of the new wards would be named after our neighborhood, so I figured we were in for a big change. The rumor mill was right, and we are now in a brand new ward. It's now our neighborhood and a second subdivision again, this time in the other direction. We were moved to a different building (fortunately, much closer to our house), and our meeting time was changed to 8:00 a.m. That's right,...

I don't generally get too serious on the blog, but last night I had an experience that was really faith promoting. It all started when Katie accidentally backed the van into the closed garage door. So it was bowed outward and wouldn't open or close. I came out to look at it and tried pulling it back into place a bit. But it was pretty messed up. A neighbor was out walking his dogs and saw me, so he came over to help. I wouldn't have thought to ask anyone for help on this because I figured this would require a professional. But apparently he has fixed garage doors before. So we started working on it, and several things were out of place. After perhaps 30 minutes of hard work (mostly by him) it was working again. It was interesting that it all happened when he was outside, which isn't all that common after dark in  mid-December. This was one more instance of my Father in Heaven looking out for me, which lately it seems like I've had many instances of. I hope I can...