18 - Sleep

Eyes heavy, breathing slowed, the room is dark and silent. My consciousness however, remains completely alert. My arms and legs tingle restlessly as I toss and turn. Unable to stop my mind and legs from pulsing consistently, I keep my eyes closed willing them to speak to the rest of my body. My wife next to me stirs and it only makes it worse. I control my breathing and tell myself that I must sleep in order to function properly at work tomorrow. This process seems to go on for hours, but when I look at the clock a mere ten minutes has passed. I sigh and roll over again to a new, cold part of the pillow. Maybe this will help. I don't know when it happens, but sometime between my restless legs and the last time I rolled over, I drift out of consciousness.

I prefer to think of this life as a day and death as sleep. Even when I long to go to sleep, it seems I cannot until something this or other worldly, lets me. Sleep however is good, is welcome. I don't know too much about death but I hope and imagine that it would be like sleep, a welcomed reprieve from the thoughts, cares, and worries of this life. I am grateful for Sleep.

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17 - Candidness

Yes, I admit, I did look up the noun form of Candid. As a bonus piece of information, candid in Japanese is arugamama. One of my favorite words to say. Today I was working on my portfolio/application into the Industrial Design program. I met a professor on campus and he took the time to stop and look over what I had so far. This teacher has amazed me. He is always willing to give you feedback and not put it in a way that says "this is how you should do it," but rather a soft "I would be interested to see if it improved when you do this". Contrast that to another teacher that I had last semester and the difference is night and day. One professor would tell you nothing! It was all a big secret and there was no right answer...not even a suggestion. Until I got my grade, and even after sometimes, I had no idea if he liked or hated my work. I am grateful when people don't try to play games and they tell you straight-up what they think.

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16 - Work

Hands are heavy and somehow, so is my heart. A long day has a way of bringing you down for no particular reason. The drive home feels kind of numb and you find yourself day dreaming at times. It would take a lot to get you to care at this point. Why do we do this to ourselves? you wonder, not sure whether you said it out loud or not. You pull into the driveway and lock the car. Each step toward home lifts your heart a little. Walking in through the door brings comfort, peace, and relaxation. Everyone here is happy to see you and all of a sudden you remember. Work is for far more than yourself.

Work provides for not only you but your loved ones as well. Anyone who has gone a long period of time without work will tell you that it is better to have work. It provides a beautiful contrast between relaxation and effort. Too much relaxation causes you to hate it. Without work there would only be the misery of not knowing how good you have it.

Suddenly work doesn't seem so bad, and you almost look forward to it tomorrow.

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15 - Water

Two things that might catch your fancy:

Plant Nanny - Yes, ridiculous, but I have a cute little app to help me keep track of my water intake. It is actually a genius idea. I get to raise little plants and keep myself healthy at the same time. By raising these virtual plants and eventually moving them to my garden I can harvest seeds in order to get different plants. A game with an actual purpose. Love it.

Masaru Emoto - I had a friend insist that I look into this. The miracle of water. When I was thinking about water this came to mind and finally I looked it up. I haven't studied it in very much depth, but I thought you might want to take a look also. Water is an intriguing thing, more or less the life-blood of every human being.

I am grateful for water.

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14 - Madison

Our Honeymoon on Kauai

I don't want this to be all sappy and disgusting so I am going to try and keep this as reasonable as I can and still express my gratitude for my wife.

I married Madison Gordon on August 23, 2012. We more or less grew up together. We didn't date much in High School, but our families had known each other for a long time. She wrote me letters and sent me packages during my two years in Japan, and when I came back she was engaged. You can imagine my dismay. Through a series of difficult and hear-wrenching events, Madison decided to cancel her engagement and we got married. I don't prefer the term home-wrecker...technically there wasn't a home yet.

I feel lucky, grateful, blessed, and indebted when I think of the girl that I will spend the rest of my life with. She is driven, beautiful, smart, and spiritual. We balance each other nicely. I have been known to call her my secretary because she honestly runs my life as well as hers. If we were a business she would be the CEO and I would probably be the janitor just trying to make things run a little smoother. She is studying to be a dental hygienist and will hopefully provide a good second income while I try to get my Masters. She is so excited to be a mother and she is going to be awesome at it. She graduated with a degree in Human Development from Brigham Young University and I am glad at least one of us will know something about babies when the time comes. Anyways, long story short: I am grateful for Madison.

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13 - Lists

The inside cover of The Book of McKay

I have a book. A book of lists.

Preface: This is a book of lists, lists of the most pertinent things for salvation as well as the least. Contained in these lists are the things that make up me for better or for worse. I expect the items in each list to change. Things will be taken away and things will most definitely and frequently be added. This book is for the sole purpose of attempting to preserve those things that I would never think to write anywhere else. Perhaps one day it will become the best summary of me, the Book of Mckay.

I wold like to share the first list in my book of lists:

My Eternal Family - The things I need to do to make sure my family is close forever.

1.) Eat dinner together at the table
2.) Nightly scripture study
3.) Read books aloud as a family
4.) Nightly prayer
5.) Sing together
6.) No TV
7.) Family Home Evening (every Monday)
8.) Board Games!
9.) Show my kids love
10.) Frequent testifying of God's Love
11.) Popcorn and Smoothies (every Sunday)
12.) Lots of Traditions
13.) Love of the Book of Mormon
14.) Scouting
15.) Watch all of General Conference
16.) Let them help even if it is inconvenient
17.) Foster a love of learning
18.) Always reach a little higher
19.) Never discipline in anger

The list continues to grow, but I am sure that if I can work on doing these things with my family we will always be close. If you have any questions about some of these traditions or why we do what we do you can contact me directly at swimmin24.7@gmail.com.

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12 - Cousins

This is my family. No, there are no cousins in the picture but I thought it would be a good visual anyways. I am the 5th of 10 kids in my family. This is a picture of my parents, brothers and sisters, and my nieces and nephews.

I have some cousins that I am close to and some cousins that I rarely see. Cousins are a strange relationship to me. Brothers and sisters, even if they are really close to you in age, are going to be at least in a different grade and have a different circle of friends. Normal friends that you have no relation to are kept because you grow up with them. Either you live in the same community, school boundary, or go to the same church. Cousins, however, can grow up in a completely different town, country, continent, school district, and culture...yet your friendship is more or less expected. Cousins are a testament to the fact that anybody, if they want to, can get along. I have a cousin that I didn't always get along with. He was older than me, cooler than me, and for the longest time I felt like I was just annoying to him (and I probably was). Years later brings us to now and growing up we had little in common outside family get-togethers and sports, yet somewhere in the midst of that, the mere fact that we are cousins has made us best friends.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we believe that we are all brothers and sisters, born spiritually of the same Father in Heaven. This teaching does different things for different people. As for me, I understand that I am a child of God. I am a natural heir to greatness no matter what I struggle with here and now on earth. What if we treated the entire human race as our brothers and sisters. What if we were all something like cousins. What if our friendship to one another was just assumed despite the difference in our background and upbringing. We may not have that much in common, but somehow we make it work because we are family. This is something that I would love to make a regular part of my life. An assumed friendship for the entire human race. We can do it with cousins...why couldn't we do it with others?

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