The Farm Boy in ME!

My advice today is the same advice I gave at work last month on my 25th birthday. When 25 and still single, start to garden!

Picture one- Holy Molly Pepper

Picture two- The Holy Molly trying to grow

Picture three- The Jalapeno Pepper, started growing yesterday

Picture four- The Garden Pepper  

Picture Five- Baby Garden Pepper on it's way 

Picture Six- The Farm boy in me!
Picture seven- What more can I say?

Boys’ get blisters. Men develop calluses.

When pressure is applied to an area of skin two outcomes is possible. The skin becomes irritated; eventually the irritated skin weakens and gives way to a blister. Or the skin becomes stimulates, eventually the stimulated skin strengthens and a callous is formed.

Boys’ get blisters. Men develop calluses.

As a young boy I wanted to prove myself a valuable man. So I asked my grandfather for work. He told me it was time to cut the ditch banks. By this time in the year the ditch banks couldn’t be burnt because the crops were to high and too dry.  

I followed my grandfather to the garage, a place I knew a tractor wasn’t kept. I laid my eyes on the lawn mower, a mini tractor would do just fine I thought, but to my surprise the mini tractor had no heart, there it sat without a battery. I was perplexed; my mind was questioning how I would do the job without a lawnmower or a tractor. At that moment my grandpa pulled out a weed-eater. Eventually the weed-eater was put away when we discovered it didn’t have any blades.

Simi relived I turned to walk back into the house, as I did my grandfather sifted through rusted antique tools that rested in a splinter filled 55 Gallon barrel. He pulled from that barrel an odd shaped golf club. With the sickle in hand my grandfather headed towards the ditch bank.

My 80-year-old grandfather explained what he wanted and with ease showed me how it was done. He handed me the tool and walked away.

The first hour I worked very little, my time was spent envisioning different ways the ditch bank could be cut. Eventually I realized my visions of a cut ditch bank wasn’t going to be done on it’s own.

The second hour I spend tangled in monstrous weeds, flipping and flailing, hacking and screaming at weeds. It was drudgery. Over and over again I swung in different directions, doing anything I could to try and level those thick powerful weeds. I was hopeless; although I worked I had no vision.

It was sometime between the second and fourth hour that my dreams found work, and my drudgery found vision. I started to cut; my flailing became focused, morphing into powerful swings. Precision accompanied my every movement. I saw in my minds eye a ditch bank with weeds cut to uniform an inch above the ground. My mind saw a job well done and my hands wanted to be the author of it.

I can’t remember how many blisters I had on my hands that day but I do remember the callous that began to form on my heart. 

“Vision without work is merely dreaming, work without vision is drudgery, but work coupled with vision is destiny.”     Thomas S. Monson

All Aboard, Now Leaving Seattle, Next Stop.....

Pure goodness! 

Do I love Seattle, YES, why? Just look at me! How could I not?

There are few times in life that we're able to stop in the moment and say, "this is exactly where I want to be."  

Seattle was that moment for me. It was a touch of wild, (leave collage in the middle of the semester) a pinch of maturity (flying across the country for a girl). And finally a lot of satisfied goodness. (love in visual format, see also picture). 

As a college student I feel I'm obligated to learn. So, I asked myself coming home, what did I learn? I learned that grades can drop a complete letter grade in less than a week. I learned that life is meant to be lived, not to be simply planned and waited for. I learned that good parents are understanding and help in times of need, and support us when we're making big decisions.

Tomorrow my arch rival :), girlfriend, secret keeper, financial advisor, coach, running partner, phycologist, work associate, task master, and best friend leaves on a mission. She's headed to Brazil; all I can say is watch out world, here comes Chanel.  

So, most of you might be asking, why aren't you marrying her if you feel this way about her? Here is my public answer. (in short)

We step into the darkness not because we enjoy being there, but  sometimes something tells us, or better said we feel, that's what we need to do. Often times we step with the hope that the light will follow. Sometimes the light doesn't follow, rather in the darkness we see a light far in the distance. 

Once we see both lights we have two options, retreat or press forward. 

We're both headed for a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. We hope to see each other when we get there. But if not we've enjoyed our time, our ride, and our love. It was worth every penny. 

- Jake Dean Steel (A stranger to loneliness) 

Immune to Rain

We mask our faces trying to hide our emotions, why don’t we mast our hearts?

The heart can’t lie; it’s not a filter, rather a distributer. The heart takes what it’s given, uses what it needs then gives to everything around it.

The heart speaks through two-way communication. If the heart is being deprived it becomes evident through the windows of your soul.

Why do men’s hearts fail them?

A failure to distribute creates a failure to receive. A failure to receive creates a cardiac arrest.

What next for the heart that fails?

Out with the old in with the new, out with the old end with the new. Time after time, the heart needs to be manually pumped by skilled hands that are persistently delivering a new life support. The hands masterfully helping the heart distribute until one day the heart needs no support.

Eventually the heart gains rhythm and beats independently.  

Gavin Shane Steel!

Meet My Friend! 

Meet my new friend his name is Gavin Shane Steel. He's a really good kid. My grandma approved of him, says he's a good example to me. I met him on January 28th.

We already compared weight he is 7 pounds and some odd ounces. I'm only 143 pounds heavier than him. He's 19 inches tall; I'm 48 inches taller.  

I hung out with Gavin today, I enjoyed how peaceful he is. I admire his contempt in life. I want to be more like him. He didn't try to be the center of attention, he wasn't story topping or even using sarcasm. He just listened and enjoyed the good company.

I think the thing that I admire most about Gavin is the spirit that he carries. I want to grow to the point that I carrie the same spirit that Gavin does.  

I hope you all get the chance to meet Gavin you'll never be the same! 

From My Eyes to Yours

 Looking into Lebanon

 
Cliffs of Arbell
 
Akko (Mediterrean Sea)
 
Bunker looking over Syria used in the 6 day War (Andrew and Jake)
 
The Jordan River
 
My new Favorite Flower, next to 2) The sun Flower and 3) the Lily
 
The Hills of Upper Galilee
 
Sunset at Akko
 
Looking over the Galilee (Cliffs of Arbell)
 
The Sea of Galilee

To blog or not to blog

Oh life, you know the more I think about life the more I don't understand it. Today I said to myself I should blog, and then another voice in my head said, why? You have nothing to blog about. And then my voice came in and said really? Really? I'm living in Jerusalem and I have nothing to write about. If I can't write about something here then I shouldn't ever write.


I got 7 new facebook friends! I'm very excited, they are all girls, (sorry Chanel) they are all Muslims and they live in the West Bank. While I was in Bethlehem I had this great desire to ask a Palestinian what they think of the Isralie Palistinian conflict. (For those who remember, I often get strong desires to ask people I don't know questions I shouldn't ask. like the one time I asked the prostitute what she was looking for in life). Back to my story, while I was at Bethlehem University I found seven girls sitting together so I went up and said I don't know what I'm allowed to say to you but can I ask you a question. Long story short I found myself saying, so do you girls want to be my friends on facebook, they all laughed and then I whipped out my book and got new friends.

What else did I do this week? Um... I went to the place they believe the last supper was held, I wrote a 14 page paper on Islam.

Oh yes, I also made olive oil, I enjoyed every minute in those trees. people were commenting on how I looked like a natural, so Naturally I put on my Farm boy Jake look and worked even harder, by the time I convinced myself I was amazing I decided to get down from the tree. I don't know what happened but two feet off the ground I fell and landed on my back. I put farm boy Jake back into my pocket and walked home as just jake.