Well, 2021 is off to a good start in the Terry home. We took down all the Christmas decorations. When all the decorations are down everything always looks clean and decluttered so it triggers me to declutter and dejunk every drawer, cabinet, nook and cranny in our house. I have made it through the main floor and the upstairs. I have a little left to do in the kitchen and then the basement. Our trashcan has been overflowing the past two weeks, and the donation pile is piled high and ready to go to the salvation army. It is such a satisfying feeling to know there is no trash and no useless items in any drawers or cupboards.
Other aspects of our lives are continuing on as well, of course. Ryan is working and doing well at his job. I am working at Smiley Dental part time. We are still having church every week alternating between watching it at home or doing our own sacrament meeting, and going in person with half our ward at a time. We have to wear masks everywhere per the Governor’s state mandate but in all aspects that Ryan and I control, we try to have the kids life as normal as possible. Playing with friends, going outside, going to stores and other places. We had a family talk the other day and I think a trip as a family is in order. The kids need to get out and go somewhere. We did think of maybe a weekend ski trip to Colorado but with Matthew’s broken leg it won’t be soon. Plans are still in discussion. COVID is definitely here and moving through the community. Even as recently as August, I’d even say September, it was rare to actually know someone personally that had, had COVID. Now we have lots of friends, co-worker, neighbors and family that have had it. So far I have been blessed that most if not all the people I know personally that had it have had no symptoms to minor symptoms and recovered with no issue.
The information I have found says the survival rate for COVID is 99.4-99.6%. I’ll take those odds any day for a global pandemic. They have several vaccine options becoming available and are starting to distribute it. I had the option to get it through work but decided in my age, health, and family situation I would rather just take my chances with COVID. I am not anti-vaccine but they are using a new method that alters the mRNA in the cells and I think I want more than 10 years (I think that is being generous) of scientific experimentation and learning before I jump on board to volunteer to pioneer the first generation to try this type of vaccine. There are rumors that it will be required to travel, the next few months will be interesting to watch and see if people decide to hand over more of their freedoms and choice for the sake of ‘safety’ or they realize lets try our best to wash our hands and occasionally get sick and not hand over more unnecessary control to the government over our lives.
The past few months with COVID and politics have revealed some interesting dynamics in our neighborhood. There is a group of neighbors that have become pretty vocal about their support of Joe Biden. That in itself is not the problem, if you want to support Biden be my guest. The actions I see that can and are leading to some issues is their starting to condemn neighbors and people around them that don’t support Biden or follow the governments ‘recommendations’ to exactness, or more precisely their idea of exactness. Instead of inviting everyone to a party like they used to they just invite the ones that openly support Biden with a sign in their yard. (I do realize that having a party with a bunch of people isn’t following social distancing protocol, but if you are doing it to support Biden this group of people say its ok. I guess COVID knows the rules about which social gatherings are allowed.) They have gotten angry and sent mean texts to a parent for giving their kid a ride to basketball practice. Even though the kid is 14 and accepted the offer and has always carpooled with them in the past. They often ‘don’t see or hear’ when you walk by their house and say hi to them while they are sitting or working in the yard. They announce on the FB page that anyone who is a Republican can unfriend them and they want nothing to do with them because some people in Washington DC raided the capitol and somehow every Republican in America should be held responsible. They google everyone on the street and let people know what people they probably want to avoid because of certain events or beliefs in their past and/or present. Matthew was ON A WALK with some friends and a neighbor told them to go home or she would call the police. I find it more than slightly ironic that all of these things go on and more while one of these people have a “Love Your Neighbor” sign in their yard. It is pretty crazy, almost laughable if it weren’t all true.
Expanding our bubble a little more to school and local happenings. The girls are back in school full time. Matthew is back to full time virtual school. There was some long convoluted explanation relating to number of cases going up but not in schools but they should stay home anyway, as the reason for going back to virtual but I don’t want to waste the time to type it here. The teachers are doing a pretty good job for the most part but this year can hardly be qualified as quality education, I am constantly assured by the schools that’s ok though. The girls school principle (the one who has her name and picture plastered all over the school and makes me want to scream and pull my hair out just by hearing her name) is loving having the excuse of COVID to make as many stupid illogical rules as she can to fulfill her need for total control. She has a little group of followers that ‘spy’ for her and turn in people that are ‘hiding’ their COVID symptoms. The kids are told they shouldn’t talk loudly because of COVID, zero visitors are allowed into the school, and when she sends all the teachers home to be quarantined, she has people with no teaching experience or even a license to substitute filling in and ‘teaching’. Uggg this might seem obvious but I loathe this woman. If you have ever seen Harry Potter she honestly is Professor Umbridge, to a tee, minus the magic wand of course but hair, dress, and smarminess are the same. We have three and a half more years left of dealing with her before Emilee is out of elementary. I can not say if I will or will not make it my mission to get her fired between now and then.
Nothing drastically improved overnight in the world at large when 2020 became 2021. In politics, Trump is throwing a temper tantrum-to be fair the democrat’s totally rigged the election and falsely elected Joe Biden, but in typical Trump fashion he is acting like a two year old. There is literally dozen’s of examples and proof from video tapes of people carrying in suitcases of votes and running them through 7 times, software corruption, eye witness accounts, counties having more votes then people living in them, ‘corrected ballets’, and so much more that the media and courts just flat out ignore and dismiss. Instead they are pushing the the story that a man who has been in politics for 40+ years with nothing to show for it, has sexual harrassment charges against him from people ages 5-80 dismissed as ‘he is friendly’, has a son that it connected to Russian Mafia and other drug Lords, and can’t follow a conversation because he has dementia, not only won the election that at its most generous predictions was never predicted in his favor by more than a slight margin, but won by a landslide, with bigger voting margins than have ever been recorded in United States history-including the beloved Obama. If you honestly think the results of this past election were accurate, you are living with your head in the sand and not willing to accept reality. The fact that people no matter what their political affiliation is are ok with this and letting it get swept under the rug is not a good sign. Our government and its validity and structure is circling the drain.
Over the past year it has been crazy to take a step back and see all the things that are in motion. No matter what perspective you look at it from-citizen, economic, political, anything-it is changing fast and furiously. From a religious perspective, when you read about the wars and government corruption in the Book of Mormon it is eerie how close situations are today. Human nature as a whole is fairly predictable and it is crazy how a little control and a little filtering of the media and propaganda can swing nations in different directions. It seems like it is sudden but it isn’t, I think a lot of people don’t realize or want to believe how subtle, organized and focused the devil is on slowly dragging people down. It is like some people view it as something of the past, just stories. If you look even in the last 100 years you can see the patterns and work of people that are pure evil working their way into position and power and building on their steps to get ultimate power. Hitler was less than 100 years ago and in my life time alone the general truth and facts of what happened and lead up to that have been taught in school and lessons learned accepted as facts, to a once small but now growing alarmingly larger and larger belief that we should head towards socialism again and even that a lot of the history and things that happened didn’t really happen. How insane is that! There is no other way to describe it as crazy but when people try and talk or change or expose the evil, they are looked on as radicals, crazy, selfish and uncaring. People are starting to be very divided and polarized.
Uuggg. I really wasn’t planning on this post being about any of this but I obviously went off on a tangent. With all of this stuff becoming more and more prevalent, obviously I am seeing it more in my personal life and that is worrisome. When I read in the scriptures that good people will be lead away by subtle means and I see it happening to my own friends and family I want to shake them and say, “This is you its talking about! Don’t fall for it!” I have heard leaders and people say that things are speeding up and moving quickly. It isn’t that I didn’t believe them but it is different when you start seeing it in your own personal life with people you know and have known.
The waters are pretty murky and that isn’t going to improve anytime soon. It is overwhelming if you focus to much on it. If I didn’t have a living prophet to follow it would be hard to keep focused. God is real, his gospel was restored to the earth through Joseph Smith. I have heard a lot of criticisms and doubts about Joseph Smith from several acquaintances in the past year or so. I know he wasn’t perfect and I know that even studying and learning more about him I still won’t have all the details or the how’s and why’s of what he did and who he was but I know enough to know that he was called by God to translate the Book of Mormon and restore the gospel to the earth in its fullness. I know he did that, and God helped him accomplish the things he needed to. I know Joseph Smith had faith, and personal revelation and I believe he did his best. I don’t need to judge him and fill in the details with the limited knowledge I have through rose colored glasses almost 200 years later. I have prayed and asked if he was a prophet, I know he was a prophet of God. I know President Nelson is a prophet of God today. I know he his helping us prepare for what is to come. He has been urging us and helping us become more independent and trusting of our individual testimonies and personal revelation. He reminds us to strengthen them and helps us know what to focus on and how to prepare ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.