Great Salt Lake Sunset

Great Salt Lake
Originally uploaded by FishChick

Who knew the Great Salt Lake could be such a magical place! Marty and I went down there on Satuday evening to take photos with a group called Photowalking Utah (www.photowalkingutah.com). This group meets up once a month to take photos in one place, usually with someone who has a special skill or knowledge to share. I enjoyed the evening so much and got some really great shots. I think I will be back there again.

I have been trying to work on my photography skills in the past few months since I upgraded and got my own brand new computer (an iMac). Now I am having some serious lust for new equipment and software so I can try some different techniques.

Cracking (up) the DNA

I've noticed that there are more things that are passed down through the DNA that one would not normally think of. I don't think there are any Nobel prizes to be found in studying the genes responsible for these things, but they are interesting to me.

Barefeet---
This one is manifested in three generations of my family (that I know about). My Dad, myself, and my son Joe are all barefooted as often as possible. I personally have been known to leave shoes all over my house, and am currently under penalty if I fail to put them away. All three of us kick our shoes off the instant we walk in the house, and could go literally for days without wearing them if given the opportunity.

Sense of direction---

It's amazing that my pioneer ancestors made it West. They must have been following someone who knew the way, and not only that, they never had to make any right turns or leave at a certain time. I struggled my whole childhood with being unable to tell time on a clock, to tell left and right, and to remember how to set a table. As an adult, I finally was able to master these skills, but it is still a challenge. I know most people can intuitively tell left and right, but I still have to take a moment to think about it. I chuckled when the subject came up at a family gathering and I found out that several of my female cousins suffer from the same quirk! Not only that, those who did not grow up in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains also had trouble with directions (N, S, E, W).

Sense of humor--

Speaking of the pioneer ancestors, I love learning stories about my forebears. However, I am tickled the most when I hear details that reveal my forebears' sense of humor. I got a kick out of reading a sketch of a pioneer family arriving in Utah and being sent to settle in Lindon, Utah. They had sold all their worldly goods, traveled for months through many trials, and finally arrived at the place the prophet had called them to establish Zion. The night they arrived, they camped out near the main road, not knowing that this property belonged to what would be their new neighbor. Upon waking, they found the rancher stopped nearby waiting to chew them out for camping on his land. One of the sons remarked saracastically, "So, this is Zion."

I am constantly trying to keep my sarcastic comments to myself, but it is a challenge when such wit and humor are charging through my veins on an hourly basis. It makes me giggle to see it expressed in my kids, like when Henry laughs and refuses to say Daddy, even though Marty wants nothing more in the world.

Book Review- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
So I just finished reading this book. I have had recommendations from friends that this is a good easy read. I don't really know why I even read these any more because I never enjoy them. Anyway, this book is written for teenage girls, and I suspect it would play very well with that audience. After all, I loved Karate Kid when I was that age.



I thought Twilight was boring and flat. I don't really understand the fuss I've been hearing. The story focuses on Isabella (Bella) Swan and Edward Cullen. Bella moves to Forks, Washington after her mother remarries and decides to follow her new husband in his career. Bella hates everything about Forks except her Dad, Charlie. Everyone seems to know who she is before she arrives, but she just wants to be invisible. Pretty soon Bella is the target of all of the boys at Forks High School, none of whom hold any interest for her except Edward Cullen, who acts like he can't stand her. Turns out he is so attracted to her that he doesn't trust himself to be around her. Bella is nearly immediately and "irrevocably" (and inexplicably) in love with Edward and he finds himself having to save her from her own clumsiness and what seems to be her destiny to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.



I don't find Bella to be a very compelling character at all, and I am having a hard time understanding what the appeal is for Edward-- it has to be more than that she smells good. She is supposedly articulate and well-read, but to me she seems boring. She seems to be a loner, but for someone who is so independent-minded she does not seem to have much of an active inner-life that would make her appealing to the teenage male population of the entire town of Forks. She spends her time alone brooding, writing emails, listening to CD's, taking showers, etc. ZZZZZzzzz. She rarely seems to catch on to anything that is going on around her. Maybe this gets developed further in the sequels.



Edward is a more interesting character as he is more developed (strange since the whole story is told from Bella's perspective as the narrator), but I can't help but wonder why a man who is supposedly 80 plus years old would be interested in a 17 year old girl. The constant sexual tension seems creepy to me in that context. He is chronically on the knife edge of wanting to devour her and wanting to protect her. Sounds like some kind of creepy Nabokov-esque fantasy.



The rest of the characters have even less character development. The writing falls flat and the dialogue is stilted. Bella seems to have a stronger connection with the vampire family than even her own family (despite her attempts to protect her parents).



Overall, I guess this book is just not my style. If you want to read a really good vampire book, try The Historian, which is a lyrical book that has interesting characters with actual plot development.


View all my reviews.

Marty

A few weeks ago was the 19th anniversary of my first date with my husband- May 28, 1989. So that means we have officially past the point where I have known him longer than my whole life before we met. He has really worked hard to become the person, the father, the husband, and the son that he wants to be. He works constantly both at his job and at home and just does what needs to be done. He was gone all week last week, and I missed him. While he was gone, I walked around my house and yard and looked at how every surface has his touch on it. He has painted it, mowed it, repaired it, tilled it, cleaned it, and maybe once in a while left a fingerprint or two. Of course he has a few flaws, but they are overwhelmingly outweighed by his generous heart, loyalty, and supportiveness. He is my best friend and the first person I want to see in the morning and the last person I want to see at night. We have been together basically all the time for 19 years now, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Henry William Lorenzo

Okay all you readers it's time for me to confess something. My husband thinks we named the baby Henry William after his father, Willem Henrikes. Here is the truth:

What he does not know is that in my mind the baby is named Henry after my favorite character in Shakespeare's Plays, King Henry (Henry the 5th), who is the main character in Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. I find the image of the (now) righteous warrior king to be so powerful as Henry leads his subjects into battle against the French, and then binds up the wounds by making a love match with the princess Catherine.

This speech is my favorite: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechhenryV.html

Of course William is after The bard himself. Forget that William is Marty's middle name, or his Dad's (Willem), or his grandfather, or my great-grandfather. Okay maybe those things were influential, but not THAT influential. Don't you know that Henry is going to be a brilliant writer himself and bring the literary world to its knees, not to mention sell millions of books and buy his mother a castle in Scotland next door to JK Rowling? (Maybe MacBeth's is available?) Then I can spend my days wandering the Heath, looking for eye of newt. Never mind that right now the only word he seems to know is "NIIIIIYE!!!!" (Which originally meant Caroline, but now seems to be an all-purpose word meaning, "I'm here, pay attention to me!") Don't you know that Henry's 17th great-grandfather was Geoffrey Chaucer, the Father of English Literature (this is the problem with studying Family History, you get a rather inflated sense of your destiny by knowing that you have such potential within your genes).

When we were in London, visiting the new Globe Theater was really a highlight of the trip for me.

Lorenzo I was able to throw in there after learning about my great-great grandfather Albert Lorenzo Cullimore. I fell in love with him a little bit (in a granddaughterly way of course) reading about his life, and I needed to throw in a little something from my family, since we were after all naming the baby after his father's father!

I think I developed my love of Shakespeare as a child doing backyard Shakespeare three separate summers. Never mind that I played male characters the first two years, at least I had a good role the second year. In my final year I got a plum role as Gertrude, the queen in Hamlet (Hamlet's mother). I can still remember the brocade ribbon on my costume and having my sister french braid my hair for me, since I could never do it well myself. I can remember the feeling of standing on the stage/back porch in the hot summer evening. I think that was a prime moment in my life.

So Henry, my beloved son, as you turn one this weekend, remember that you will grow up to be kind, righteous, and brave like King Henry, and witty and clever like the Bard, and generous and faithful like grandpa Albert.

This is the stuff I think about

Is "email" a noun that can be used as a singular and a plural noun? For example, one does not say, "I am going to check my emails." However, when one receives several responses to a single message, one might say, "I have received several emails about that message." The word "mail" refers to all of the mail in the mailbox, be that one piece or many.

This comes from me getting tripped up in a book I'm reading (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer) in which the main character, Bella, refers to one of her weekend activities as sending "email" to her mother. I am assuming she is sending more than one since she does not say, "an email," but it tripped me up because I would have said I was sending "emails."

I love a language conundrum. (Is the plural of that condundri or conundrums?)

Book Review-- Ghost Rider by Neal Peart

Ghost Rider is a memoir of the author's (Neal Peart, Rock Star Drummer, author, etc.) journey from grief to grief as he travels alone across North America on his motorcycle. The reader is brought into his inner thoughts through his journals and letters to dear friends and family. The level of his grief is profound, and for me it meant that I sometimes needed to take a break from the book. And his journey through that grief goes on, and on, just like the Ghost Rider. The author is very gracious for allowing the reader into this tender and painful part of his life. I was amazed at the kindness he displayed toward his own pain-- noting that his grief had splintered him into many characters, each of whom served a different purpose in helping him cope. He seemed to have a tenderness toward these fractured aspects of himself and treated them as if they were all friends. It was a very profound lesson in moving on by keeping moving (but moving in a previously unforseen and unknowable direction). I was relieved and satisfied that eventually he is able to exit "Death Valley" and find access to joy again.

One thing that I found very interesting in the book were the common literary references (didn't expect this from a drummer in a rock band.) For example, the title of one of the chapters is "Homeward Angel, On the Fly" is a reference to a Milton poem (possibly also a Thomas Wolfe book entitled Look Homeward, Angel), Lycidas, in which an "uncouth swain" mourns the too-soon passing of a dear one lost at sea,


"Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer"


At the point in the poem where Milton writes, "Look homeward angel" he makes a turning point from describing the bitter sorrow that the whole earth feels at the loss of this friend, noting that the weeping must end as Lycidas has gone home as an angel where heaven is all that much more improved for the presence of Lycidas. And then the shepherd aka "the uncouth swain" moves on...

"And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the Western bay;
At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew:
To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. "

Cricket

Cricket is my darling daughter. She is such a fun daughter-- so kind and sensitive. Her teacher sent home a report card this week that says she's brilliant in every way except that she needs to learn to stay out of things that don't concern her. I find this so interesting because I have also had parents come up to me and tell me how she has stood up for their child and defended them against bullies or other threats. I think these are two sides of the same coin.

She does need to learn to navigate that a little better, but I think we all do. I had another mom warn me that Cricket is a little naive when it comes to the queen-bee drama that goes on at her age, and she was very concerned about Cricket being the target of this at a recent sleepover party. I was a nervous wreck because it was really her first sleepover with someone who wasn't a first cousin. However, it seemed to go smoothly. Her daddy and I made a deal that she doesn't do any more sleepovers when Momma doesn't feel good about it!

She is growing up so fast.

Book Review- Infidel by Aayan Hirsi Ali

I learned so much from reading this book. Aayan Hirsi Ali has led an astonishing life characterized by cruelty and oppression, and yet throughout her life has somehow preserved a sense of hope, love of mankind, and a deep perception of real justice. I found her premise about the reason for the rise of terrorist groups very compelling. Hirsi Ali argues that because governments based on Islamic Law (Sharia) cannot be criticized (because if Allah requires it, it cannot be questioned), when government fails the people, the people must turn outward rather than questioning their own decisions and systems. In this situation, the natural instinct is to criticize Islam's perceived enemies, i.e., Jews and Western civilizations.

Hirsi Ali has been a champion against the maltreatment of women in Islamic societies, and compels us to look at our own role in not condemning practices such as female genital mutilation, honor killings, and physical and emotional abuse of girls and women. Hirsi Ali believes that Western guilt and political correctness requires that we look the other way in the guise of tolerance. While I find her argument very compelling, I also think that she paints with a very broad brush, blaming human problems on religious beliefs. I tend to agree with her that Islam is fundamentally flawed for many reasons, not the least of which is that it cannot grow and change as the world evolves.

This book is so brave, and I know it puts the author at grave risk to have published it. She takes us from her childhood growing up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her escape from an arranged marriage and asylum in Holland. She eventually becomes a Dutch citizen and a member of parliament. The story is told in a level of intimacy and detail and skill that must be drawn from her history of the oral tradition of her family, as she describes her grandmother passing on the family legends. I found it somehow a personal connection to know that Aayan (that is how I think of her after reading her memoir) is just my age, born just 5 months before me.

Baby Love

Baby Love
Originally uploaded by FishChick

This is my little one Henk, who is just about the sweetest most happy baby that I ever saw. Who wouldn't want to spend every day with such a sweetie? He has this power over me and has since he was born and would look up at me so aware and perfect with his mouth in a little O.

Questions about Prayer

Does praying for something that is not happening in your life now, mean that you are going against God's will for your life? Can you ask others to pray for you to help you get what you want?

Prayer has been a huge part of my life since I was a girl. I have had many answers to prayers and it seems my heart is often drawn out in prayer. I had many people pray for me when we were trying to conceive Joseph (and Caroline and Henry for that matter). When we were nearing the end of the IVF process with Joseph, we had a family fast and broke the fast together, and many friends joined us in the fasting and prayer. It was a great source of support at the time. If I am praying about temporal needs, I still think that is okay, like finding a job, or being led to people who can help meet my family's needs. If it is a more selfish motivation, I still think it is okay to ask, but I don't think that prayers will be all that helpful if I am praying in the wrong direction. The act of prayer is something however that requires me to examine my goals and motivations and determine if I feel they are aligned with God's desires for me and my life. The examination is an important process, and part of the reason why mighty prayer is referred to as work. That is something I have learned about prayer lately.

I have been praying for the same thing for over 10 years (the opportunity to be a mom at home with my kids) and have yet to receive the answer I want to that prayer. However, I have had the burden lifted and my life has gone in directions where I can see that the time was not right for me to have what I have asked for. My current situation has been necessary to make other important things happen in my life. But there have been times when I have felt that my prayers have been in vain, and that I felt far from my Father in Heaven. When I have changed the way I pray, asking for guidance on what to pray about, I have felt those answers in terms of lifting the burdens, making them easier to bear, and lifting the despair and grief that I have sometimes felt. I still pray for this desired outcome, which I feel is a righteous one, but I have a new perspective on it these days.

All that's best of dark and bright

I have been trying to get started with blogging again and have made a few false starts with trying some new things, but I am now back to blogger again. I was struggling to come up with a name for my blog and remembered one of my favorite poems, She Walks in Beauty, by Lord Byron.

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

I know there are many interpretations of this poem that are less than the ideal on the surface, but I prefer the simplest interpretation, that Old Georgie boy was smitten with this lovely woman in both her physical beauty and her character. I also love that he loves her darkness and her brightness, because I seem to need that kind of counterpoint to really feel deeply about something too.

So I am hoping that this blog will be a place for me to write about all that's best of dark and bright in my perception!