It was just different than it seemed

If you were to walk into my library and office, at home, you would find books on all the walls almost floor to ceiling. Over the years I have read a few books and the variety is in many ways pretty broad. At year end or anytime I suppose it is enjoyable to just look around and see what catches my interest.

With a lot of blogs over the years I have on occasion just mentioned a book or two. This year what catches my eye, and pauses me to ponder some, is that

four of the most interesting and different

books I can recall reading just "happened"

to me and were read over these last

few months.

They were "so" different than what I had read before and really in their own way were sort of life changing type books. One just does not continue on unchanged after these books.

What it is that causes me to think that they are life changing has to do with the subject of the books and a new insight into things that I thought I knew something about before and found I didn't. In addition a "personal connection" with the books theme can be a big thing when you venture into something different. Our son's mission was the connection to the two Hmong Books. Lots of things connected us with the book, When Faith Endures. It was about the fall of Saigon. A pretty big event in our lives but still mostly just a news story watched. The Van Nguyen (pronounced Tay Van Win) was charged with evacuating members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from his war-torn country and he tells it right up to and then after the helicopters so many. He was the President of the only Saigon Branch for the church. The national tragedy was added to by his hope to get his own congregation out of harms way.

Getting to know about something you thought you

knew something about and didn't is the common

theme in these4 books.

My connection was just "living through the time", learning about the Hmong who offer their own perspective of all of those events, of course, and knowing the Mission President in Hong Kong who helped this man through it all.

Then a book about a Doctor, "The Best........in the West" and he really seemed to be just that. It was in the 1800's in Soda Springs Idaho, and again through new eyes it was another look at a time when my own ancestors were going West. It was Kathy's Grandparents that provided the connection probably having gone to this interesting Doctor themselves.

So all things considered it was a good year. Needed my own Doctor by years end. Guess "my" book will have to wait.

2009 stuff

When I put together this collage of pictures I was hoping to capture some of the things done and even thoughts that captured 2009. Great things happened. I suppose I will personalize the thoughts a little more and send them on as an email or two........................The collage looks better when you click on it and it gets bigger...............

Little Girl

Love that little Girl. Course how we see ourselves now might have a lot to do with how we remember ourself then.

Holiday Food thoughts

I was just reading about a person I know very well who thinks of Fruit Cake around this time of year, and it isn't the guy standing in the hallway in these pictures. Course I changed this picture a couple of weeks after I first posted it and it would be a mircle if anyone noticed that and it ever comes up again? Seems as though her, the lady who loves good fruitcake, Grandma used to send a very good fruit cake to her family when she was growing up and it is now a good Holiday memory..........With this inspiration I wondered a little what food item might have a good holiday memory for me. Two things come to mind. Not because I particularly love these items but my Dad did. Cherry Chocolates were an easy gift for him. We knew he liked them. Also I often got him some "orange sticks". They were orange inside and covered with chocolate and in a long box. I can't think of a brand name. I just know that I bought them for him a lot of times. I suppose I would associate the holidays, food wise, with good dressing and good yams both of which KJ is the one that does them best. So this next part is about some good foods or food memories......................Good Jello salads or another type of similar salad that I like that again is a KJ speciality. I just don't remember a real "favorite" food of my own when I was a kid, myself. I liked RC Cola, Red Pudding, French Toast, Artic Circle ( or the 7 for $1 ones from Albertsons) hamburgers, chicken fried steak from the truck stop, ice cream , cream soda, and fresh peaches and raspberries. Corn on the Cob was always good. Candy Corn and cotton candy was good. I don't think I every had lasagna until I was married and of course that is another KJ produced favorite. Should have mentioned Creamsicles and Fudgesicles. Peaches ought to be mentioned twice on a list like this. So a little holiday food trivia. Ho Ho Ho.

truth is

I will have to admit I am getting a little blog weary. I have used this blog to record a lot of daily thoughts over the last few years. I also have used it to put pictures of the thoughts and moods and events that have been on my mind. Some pictures have made it to the blog several times. Guess I ought to find a way to print it all up and have it made into a little book and then just tuck it on a shelf somewhere. Might do that. Guess the more I think of doing it the more inclined I am to just put a family shot or something more about us. I have to admire KJ's blog. She never intended it to be anything other than for a few folks and it is far more interesting.

Thoughts Between

My first thoughts when looking through a lot of pictures I have on file was to just pick some favorites. Now I am thinking "they are all my favorites" and maybe I can get KJ to make them all into a layout but then I went ahead and started started to pick them. It didn't take long to see that I was picking "black and white" shots. Maybe it is just me today, but you really see things different in black and white. Just the choices of each pictures seemed like it added to and expanded the thoughts. presented.

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Maybe in some small way bringing these pictures together would be a little like "finding some new thoughts" and painting them. Each stroke adding to the ones before. Starting as a small boy and moving on to an older man "and thoughts between". So I suppose this is an odd post, for Thanksgiving, but then more thanks is always needed as the journey unfolds............

lucky guy

I guess I see myself in "all the pictures" here. The easy one is just getting to eat the food that will result from the last picture, tomorrow, as we celebrate being here together and are Thankful for that. Course we have family that won't be here but we have a nice group that will be. Seems like Thanksgiving is as much about being together as it is about the food. More really. Anyway I just like the other two pictures. See myself in both. On the one hand my favorite person, KJ, kisses me as I get on the train heading out prepared for life. Course that was a long time ago and in fact I didn't know her then but would have liked to. The other has me dancing on the wall with her. Guess both are just products of the imagination. Or maybe they are real enough since I see myself in them.

home brand is better

Love good piano music. Great music coming from the room next to where I am at. Good day. Sunday thoughts. Good food. Rice smells great when it is cooking. Later this week we will have some turkey and dressing of course. Mike brought one, a turkey, today. KJ does a good job fixing Turkey. I suppose the only reason to post the brand he brought is to remind us that he brought it. I figure it will be our brand by the time it is ready. Times change. Then too, lots of folks probably don't fix a turkey.

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Some music seems seem so familiar. Soft piano music almost has a voice of it's own.

Could be a better "Tree" year just ahead

Thinking back to Christmas 2008.............. I figured "this Tree to the left" ought to live in infamy. It indeed takes the award for the least impressive tree ever to be in our house. Course I take the responsibility for putting it up. Last years Christmas was one that we could have gotten by without a tree, here at the ranch. Then this year one can only speculate and imagine what "this years Tree to come" will be like. Could it make a blog next year looking back again due to some great significance? Could it be an award winner? Will it take a little more floor space or height? What about all those all time great trees we have had, will it be like those? At this very moment it is in a box in the garage waiting for unveiling.

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Course today is just another regular Saturday. Blue skies. Good morning walk through the neighborhood with my returned walker perhaps runner. As we speak, or more accurately, as I write, one guy is to my right, not really, reading about some politics and the other one to my left again not really but out the window on the patio sharpening the shovel. I notice that one of "the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" listed on a little note by some other quotes just to my right, really, suggests that we be

1. Proactive,

2. Begin with the end in mind,

3. Put First Things First,

4. Think Win-Win,

5. Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood,

6. Synergize, 7. "Sharpen the Saw".

So there you go. A little wisdom right in the middle of all these pictures.....................................

tomorrow

This will be updated tomorrow. This is the 2 years ago version.....................

2 years of service for Zach

This last week we went to California to bring Zach home from his Mission. We spent a few days with him and visited a lot of very nice people. Lots of pictures. I wondered what to post as a memory of the week. The older people were the most interesting. Many did not speak English so we were not able to visit but listening to Zach visit was well worth it.

Thinking back a few years about a challenging hike

Piferhorn Peak up Cottonwood Canyon toward Alta. Take a right turn half way up and go South (this is the beginning of about a 20+ mile hike) over a mountain, up a mountain and into this meadow. Then climb up to the top of the peak and you can see Timpanogos to the South and the Great Salt Lake to the North and West. Worth thinking back about. I found a picture of a couple of friends standing on the very top rock that I took when we made it to the top. Mike was with us. This was a challenging hike.

Seems like that flower is alone?, sort of

Like a lot of daily blogs this picture was probably used before, somewhere along the line of 550 or so blogs over the last few years. I am pretty sure Mr Z took the flower picture. It is in our back yard in the "garden could be grown" area. I remember today looking through some boxes in the garage and noticing a flower like this in one of the boxes that had some other flower type items. Yellow is a good color for a flower......................................... at least I would like to make that claim in this "overview of a Friday night at around 8:59 or so".

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I am currently reading a book about a bookstore and book addict which is of course a lot like a number of books I have read but this one is one I am enjoying right now. I have finished a couple of others in the last few weeks. I wonder how much we really learn from all the books we read? I was looking at a picture of myself and my brother when I was probably around 10 or 11 years old. I wondered what it was that I knew then that I still know now? Did I have an awareness of what the world was really like or who I was and how I might fit into the world or what I could gain from my time from the world then? Did I understand how important it would be to just do my best. To get up and try again. To care for and about family. In some ways I think I may have. Did those thoughts exist then or did they grow from then to now or were they just added along the way? How have those perceptions or convictions or just thoughts then changed over all this time? Did reading change or add to those thoughts or what changed or added to it them most? I think probably the greatest knowledge comes from interactions with others. On the other hand reading is often about presentations and expanded interactions with others in a way. Maybe reading is just another side of life? Still you learn what works and what doesn't by doing. On the other hand reading about others isn't all bad in that it saves some pain. Then of course it offers some joy but maybe a lessor version of joy.

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How exactly did that guy grow up? Then again what is next?

Rain

Rain

Saturday Stuff

Good Saturday it was. Too walks with a couple of fine folks. Worked on the outdoor water hose outlet issue with another fine neighbor friend. Did some serious home R&D on a special sandwich for lunch. Put up a drape rod and a wall shelf with some help from my friend. Sort of finished the day off watching a good movie on the tube. Might now have to work on finishing the book I am reading. Finished one this week already. This morning when I was out for a walk with my friend we both saw shadows on the wall with the nice looking guy on the left kissing the one on the right. Hope she posts that picture. She does carry her camera.

Wonder if we can go back, course in a prior blog I went back to this house and some similiar thoughts, or if we do go back when we remember??

My dad was born in 1914 and grew up in this house.

*(Yep taking this little memory lane trip again.............)

The one room smaller house behind it had a coal stove and a bed and lots of storage shelves and was used more in the summer. In front of the smaller house and behind this house was a water pump that one could, and I did on occasion, pull pumping water out of the ground. Off to the right a ways was a out-house, and off to the right a shorter ways was a small creek. If you followed the creek up the field from in back of the house far enough, East to the hills where the spring came out, you could find crayfish in the water. In the summer the water from the creek could be diverted to flood the larger front lawn area. The trees in the summer were full of leaves and blocked the view of the house some. I remember being on the porch in the summer. The nearest neighbor was about 1/2 a mile or more away. I remember the "fire flies" at night. In front of the house was a two lane road, actually the main highway to Salt Lake, and across the road from the house were areas fenced in with a cow barn and chicken coop area. A few horses and pigs were there also. Seems like a pretty simple place for two folks to raise 4 boys and 3 girls. All seemed to be fine people and later had fine families of their own. I recall my dad never had any interest in living on a farm after having left it.

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Makes you wonder why I keep going back even if it is just a mental trip.

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I remember going to this house often as I grew up. Watching my Father working to re cover this roof and regularly helping with things around the house when his parents were a lot older.

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Time spent, now remembered, visiting and helping then. Good Folks.....................................

Fall Again

Saturdays are good days for walks, and or runs, and today I went on a walk twice. One earlier with KJ and another after with MJ. Great weather and sky. Earlier we saw some balloons off in the distance. The air is crisp and the feel of fall is great.

Fall

Fall is worth having. Good colors on the trees, balloons in the sky, not to hot and not too cold. Course without change there would be no butterflies which is what it says on a little magnet picture next to my computer so it must be true. Today was the second day of General Conference. Good messages. One speaker mentioned that folks stand sometimes to tell everyone that they love their family but don't do it face to face and in their own home. The implication of telling everyone this in conference was that is that they should tell their families these things face to face and that would be even better. Good message. I recall my own Father seemed in some ways too quiet and reserved to be telling us all that but then again I do remember a lot of times that he did tell me that he loved me. Then again he loved our Mom and all of us and his life did indeed show that.

best running trail, "ever"...............Millcreek