summer projects

I have been counting down until summer vacation...

I have had so much fun planning my projects. Most summers I pick projects and generally work on one a week. This time I think I'm going to focus on different projects each day of the week and work on my scrapbooking in the evenings. My penciled-in plans:

Early morning:

2 mile walk
am yoga or streching
yard work--front flower beds
                  vegetable garden
                  get rid of saltgrass
scripture study and lesson prep

Daytime:

Monday:
Pinterest projects--wind chime
                              family tree pendant
                             clothes pins with thumbtacks
                             make a quilt
                             scrabble tile magnets
                             blocks for 4th of July
                              family wordle project
                              mosaic project 

Tuesday:
Food--work on recipe binders
           make cottage cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella, and sour cream (tried ricotta but failed)
           try new healthier recipes--look into different grains
           work on meal planning

Wednesday:  

Preparedness--work on 72 hour kits again
                        rotate water storage
                        rotate #10 cans
                        work on alternative heat source
                        make a solar oven


Thursday:
Family History--add to my personal history
                           research and post to blog
                           new photos and arrangement for wall
                           work on family history book to put on scribd.com
                           check info on familysearch.org and print a fan chart
                           attend temple

Friday:
House--finish guest room
             sort files in cabinet
             organize photo files
             dejunk each room

Sunday:
Personal Progress goals
            

Evening:

project--scrapbooking
2 mile walk 

read

Summer Reading List

I have 4 books that I've started to read and want to finish and one new book on my list (and then I added 2 more):

read:    

Eve and the Choice Make in Eden by Beverly Campbell
The Essential Difference: the Truth about the Male and Female Brain by Simon Baron-Cohen
The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine

finish:

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition, and Health  by Marion Nestle (well, I read a little and it was interesting, but I returned it to the library when it was due)

Maze Runner by James Dashner

Following the Light of Christ into His Presence by John M. Pontius

Brush with Death by Karen MacInerney

not having to bear my testimony at Stake Conference

Last weekend we had a special Stake Conference. Sunday morning as I was sitting there waiting for the meeting to start, the Stake President let me know that I might be called upon to speak. After a little while, one of the counselor's told me the same thing. Then executive secretary did, and my brother-in-law who is the other counselor came over and I told him I had already been warned. He just wanted to let me know he had not been the one to suggest my name for "the list." I wonder how many others were on the list and if they were similarly warned. In the end, no one extra was called, so I was off the hook, so to speak. However, for most of the meeting I pondered and squirmed and couldn't figure out what to say. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

I do not enjoy being in front of people (and since we had a General Authority there, the place was more packed than usual), so I was surprised to find that the reason I was glad not to have to get up was not because of my natural dislike for being the center of attention, but because I was afraid they wouldn't get out of me what they were hoping for. I might have given an apology for my blessings instead of showing gratitude.

I knew the reason I was one of the one's on "the list." Almost 6 months ago, my 21 year old boy who has Asperger's syndrome and couldn't serve a proselyting mission, started his 2 years as a family history missionary. Then about a month ago, my oldest got married for time and all eternity to his fiancée in the Salt Lake Temple. Six days after that, my 19 year old left for the MTC for his 2 week training before being sent out on a proselyting mission. The last 6 months have been amazing. But I didn't want to share that. Not there, anyway.

I am (sometimes) very conscious of those who do not share the same blessings I have. I guess I could have born my basic testimony of God, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, the Church of Jesus Christ, and Thomas S. Monson. People didn't need to know the specifics of why I was asked...yet I felt since that was why I was asked that that's what they wanted me to talk about.

The problem reminds me of the Relief Society's "Good News Minute" where each Sunday a few minutes would be taken for sisters to share their good news with the others. That was done away with because instead of engendering a bond, it made certain wounds more sore. How do you face people stating each week how wonderful their lives are when yours is falling apart?

How can I state I love my husband to a group where many may wish to be married but aren't--or are recent widows--or have husbands that aren't what they should be? How can I talk about my children who are currently doing what they should (though who knows in a few years if that will still be the case) when so many don't have children or their children have passed away or are wayward?

Yes, some are strengthened by such sharing--it gives them hope even if they aren't currently enjoying those blessings. But for some, it's just a time for Satan to rub salt in their wounds by having reminding them of blessings that they wish to have or used to have, but don't anymore.

Political correctness can go too far, yet we should be sensitive to those around us. Where do you draw the line?

Should I not be grateful for my blessings? Definitely, but maybe in a more private arena and not always at the pulpit.

So, I'm not sure what I would have said last Sunday. I think it's a good thing that I didn't have the chance to find out.

poetry-- J Alfred Prufrock and scriptures

My daughter recently participated in the Poetry Out Loud contest--it's a recitation and not writing contest.

I don't know much about poetry. It is one thing I dread whenever I sub in an English class--that we are going to work on interpreting poetry. In my 6 years of subbing, it's happened twice...and I'm terrible at interpreting poetry.

I don't know the real definition of poetry, but to me it is the beautiful use of words--combining them in a way I wouldn't think of. Sometimes it's the word choice, sometimes the rhythm, and of course both those things together. And it's the feel you get when you hear or read the words.

I may not always understand it all, but sometimes you can get a feeling from the words whether you understand them or not. One of my favorite-I-don't-understand-it-all poems is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. I was introduced to it my junior year at college by some friends who had memorized it for their AP English class. The pain and loneliness come through to me. There are certain phrased that I repeat to myself as situations come up. The one that I quote most often (when being left out or not getting what I want is the topic) is probably:

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each .
I do not think that they will sing to me.

And the next most used one by me, especially now that I am getting older is:

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

I, the lover of science and math, have discovered that in poetry, I don't need everything to be clear. Nuances will do. At times.

I consider a lot of the scriptures as poetry. Oh, there is such beauty in scriptures. And I don't always understand those words, either, but I can get the feel of the message and the spirit it brings.

Just a few example from the scriptures--

Job 23:12 ...I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

2 Nephi 26:25 Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.

Alma 5:26 ...if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Le us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin? .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.