In the countenance of others we see the face of the Lord

Looking back at this year one area to consider would be to consider the books I have read. Wondering if the books as a whole indicate anything about the particular year. I guess that could be the case. I think this year has been one where more time was spent on trying to improve "inside" rather than "outside".

*

I am not sure that this is a full list and most likely I have missed some things that would have been worthwhile to have listed and thus reflected on some.

Of all of these books the one that I have reread again and enjoyed was the one about the life of David O. McKay. Enjoyed may have been the wrong word to use on this. I understood things more completely and felt that it was important to understand what was presented. It made a difference. All of these books this year or at least these that I recall have had an impact and made a positive difference.

I like what Harold Bloom said in his book "How to Read and Why"". He first answered the question, "Why Read?" His answer: "It matters". He suggests that one of the uses is to prepare ourself for change, the final change. To weigh and consider. He suggests to not attempt to improve your neighbor or your neighborhood by what or how you read. He says that self-improvement is a large enough project for your mind and spirit. He also adds that A scholar is a candle which the love and desire of all men will light.

*

Prince & Wright... David O. McKay and The Rise of Modern Mormonism

Alexander, Thomas... Things in Heaven and Earth, The Life & Times of Wilford Woodruff

Durham, G. Homer... The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff

Parry, Peterson, & Ricks... Revelation, Reason and Faith

Kennedy, Edward M.... True Compass

Widstoe, John... A Rational Theology

Widtsoe, John A... Evidences and Reconciliations

Madsen, Truman... G Eternal Man

Nibley, Hugh... Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless

Muhammad, Ali... The Soul of a Butterfly Reflections on Life's Journey

Ferrell, James... The Holy Secret

Ferrell, James... The Peacegiver

Tamale, posole, doughboy Christmas thoughts

Merry Christmas is the correct post for today. We started it all out last night with Tamale's and Posole. If we went back 10 years and imagined a Christmas started out with this food it would have been "hard" to imagine. Things turned out odd. I actually find the tamale and posole a very festive treat for the holiday. Today has been been good too.

I was looking through a journal that had some good memories of past special occasion. It had one of my favorite "Far Side impressions. A guy on a big roller chasing a little doughboy. The caption " The Pillsbury Doughboy meets Franks Asphalt and Concrete Paving Service. The little doughboy was running fast. Guess this must be where he went. (to see the doughboy shrink)

That said, Merry Christmas, again.

Eve Day

Christmas Eve has been a nice day.

Went for a walk. Talked to SB on the phone. Read a book. Tonight we will stop by some friends house for a short visit. Ahead of last year on this one.

1940 something but still a memory

I understand that some people can remember every day of their lives. I suppose it is just a small handful of folks who have that talent. I have thought some about memories this Christmas season as I have looked at pictures of Christmas going back to 1970. On the one hand I hate to not remember more clearly some of the good things we have done and time we have spent together. On the other it might be a little easier to not have to remember the mistakes and the mis steps. It is interesting that I can remember standing in this yard in front of this little house. I suppose it might explain why it was always sort of a special little house in my opinion. When we were first married we lived in this house for a short time and it was a time I value and glad I can remember. I remember a lot about the lawn out front of this house back when the picture was taken. I sort of can see the green and remember how it was to lay down on it.

Tree stores

This past week I came accross a couple of Trees that surprised me a little. My aunt, I guess, made up a tree with some of my cousins pictures on it. I found myself on it for that matter. Another surprise was getting to see the London Temple through a Christmas Tree thanks to another cousin who is working there for a few more months.

ho ho ho, 2010 or the real and the pretend

*

Christmas 2010 is coming together in New Mexico. Today has been a casual day. Not much planned. Walked with KJ this morning. I did come home early yesterday to help out. Didn't decorate the tree by the way, nor did I do the mantel. Great job in both cases of course.

inside the Pit

Miss the Karl and John show. Sports is not the same. I sent pictures of the Pit to some old Utah Friends just to let them see it. It is still the most exciting sports deal in town.

BYU and Utah, in my opinion, are two great teams to root for. On the other hand I don't think I have ever done a sports related blog.

A fireside will be held at the Albuquerque West Stake Center on December 17th, 2010 at 7pm. Members of the Church who are also on the Brigham Young University football team will speak and provide musical presentations.

"Just" for Trudy

The little girl on the right is sure cute. Course the one getting a drink makes me remember that day.

In Proverbs 22:1 it tells us that "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.

Our parents gave us a good name which we will always share. "There" name goes with us. We honor them by remembering and sharing and caring.

For your birthday I wish for you that yours and Gary's name is always honored, and remembered and shared.

Love Brent

Giving Thanks this Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving and it is a good day to think back and ponder all the things that one should be thankful for. There are many more than I have found in this group of pictures but looking through a long file of pictures is a good way to focus on things to be thankful for.

The guy up in the top left hand corner is me back in the late 1940's I think. I posted it because I am thankful to have had a nice head of hair for some of my life. The guy in the opposite corner is again me back in the early 90's and I am indeed thankful for many years of running.

The collage has twenty pictures. In the center is Kathy taking my picture while below you see me taking hers in the Bosque along the Rio Grande a couple of weeks ago.

A picture of Mike as a little guy watching a parade, and Zach as a very young boy, and Katie helping us on our first big move to California as a very young girl are some of my favorite things to remember and be thankful for.

This group of pictures has a picture of the Sandia's which are just to the East. If I had room for another few pictures on this the Wasatch Mountains, Mt Olympus, and Millcreek Canyon would be here and they indeed are on the list of things I am thankful for. The extra room could also have been filed with both Kathy's and my extended families.

Deeper than could be shown by pictures is my thankfulness for the hand of the Lord in our lives.

Us, this week.

Favorite pictures of the week.

*

Something about trees and walking on a dirt trail and leaves all around that are just addicting. I love to walk through areas like this. These pictures offer two different views of a place and one captures the other.

walk through the bosque

Yesterday we went for a walk through the "Bosque" along the Rio Grande. I of course have been the first to post pictures and that might be a first because I only took three pictures. The little trail through the trees is a great place to walk. It was a great morning.

what is success

A good goal, it would seem, would be to obtain "success". The question of whether that is a good goal seems to be much easier than the answer to "what is success".

Success seems, or has seemed, like a ladder. It seems like it must involve taking some steps up somewhere and that those steps would be progressive towards something.

In Ether 12:27 it says, " And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

We heard this scripture last night and I thought about it in terms of how does it help us be better. It seems pretty logical that if we become better in some way that would be a success. This scripture suggests something different than the idea of a ladder leading up to some higher place. It suggests that being better is gained by being humble. Being humble is probably not like a ladder but more like a mirror recognizing that we need to improve. Humility doesn't bring up thoughts of climbing a ladder.

I suspect that weak things become strong because they become successful in getting closer to the Lord. That then must be what success really is........................

thought for the day

Muhammad Ali / Favorite Quote


Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even

knew it then and know it now....................

I suppose both pictures could have the subtitle, "memory". They both bring memories back. The least important memory in the picture if of the books of course but some thoughts about them have application to my thoughts today. If you were to look at my assortment of books more completely you would find far more that can be seen in this picture. My office today has three solid walls of books. I have read them all and have re read many of them. I remember what is in most of them eventually but it takes some work to bring back the memories in many cases. Often you read of a old man with a lot of books fondly recalling how important the books were in his life but admitting that he hardly can really recall what was in them. Perhaps that is not to be avoided. Hopefully memories lost will come back someday "restored". I believe that they will. Hopefully the people you care about throughout your life will never take any work to bring back real memories of them and more important hopefully those you cared about "knew it then and know it now".

Friday - blue

Yesterday's late afternoon walk was one where I took this picture with my camera phone. This mornings walk was also perfect weather. The lone "blue" flower just alone in the middle of the brown ground cover and thorns and weeds always catch my attention. I also find blue in nature to be somewhat of a surprise. Of course it is a pleasant surprise. The question could be ..................

"What in nature is naturally blue?"

*

*

Water comes to mind, but water is not blue, even though it may look blue, it is just a reflection of the sky. The sky would seem obvious especially if your in New Mexico but it is not actually blue. Apparently it is just a "refraction of light" entering the atmosphere (Or something along those lines) I guess that leaves some plants, flowers, some animals eg. exotic frogs fish and certain stones. Wonder why moods are sometimes called blue?

31

I have been working on a life story for a long time. I have as the first picture this one and the first line is below. It goes through this year and is something I have written a little bit at a time for a long time. Hope it works out ok.

"I am 31 years old and have been married for 11 years. I may seem like an odd time to start a journal since a lot has already happened in our lives but I just don’t want to continue to not make note of them."

Saturday

This picture is not "blog worthy", nor is it worthy of much. Even so it is a somewhat accurate in recording Saturdays walk, this week. Long pants, a coat and a hat for the first time in months were needed. After I got home and by noon it was sunny so it was too bad. The picture was shot with my camera phone. Now the blog was done a week ago and since then I have come back and made the picture look a little better. This of course is something that no one will see or not the difference. If you do a comment would be in order.............................................................

Chile Farms.......................

Wondering what to put on the blog today and for that matter this time of year. This picture is a little late for the blog really. It is a field of Green Chile in Southern New Mexico. Probably near "Hatch" New Mexico. Right now the harvest is over. The last of the harvest came in a couple of weeks ago. It starts out mid summer and goes into October. The later the harvest the more red you see in the Chile. New Mexico's green chile's are unique. I suppose some might think that they are the same as Anaheim Green Peppers but the New Mexico product is just different. It turns into Green or Red Chile and it goes on a lot of things you might not expect. Course it is great on hamburgers. Looking at this field sort of reminds me of a field of potatoes, or corn or even beets. Having both red and green chile on your stuff is having it Christmas style. Some like red and others green. Some say that one is hotter than the other and it sort of depends on how that "lot" was processed. Heat is often added and not just in the chile right out of the ground. I like red better as it is a little smoother or it just tastes better hot. I do like "hot" and find my tolance for a hot product to be pretty high. Spent some time in those fields, once upon a time.

Favorite Picture

One of my favorite pictures. It has three of my favorite people in it all looking at me. The young man that has a nice head of hair, course Jeff's got a nice head of hair compared to me, and standing on my left is my favorite grandson. His birthday was yesterday. He is a very smart guy. He thinks a lot about things and has some good insight into a lot of things. I enjoy being with him. (Riley too).

Happy birthday a day late. Course if you can have birthday dinners and events early it is never too late to post a good picture to add to the event.

Found one

Had it not been for the ward building where the painting "Not Alone" covered the entire front wall and where I attended church from the age of about 6 to about 14 I could have grown up in Pocatello and never heard of Minerva Teichert.

*

So why put this on my blog today? Well yesterday I visited the LDS Church office building at the south end of the valley. I went to the room on family search and found a large Minerva Teichert painting on the wall. Not the whole wall but pretty big so it was interesting to see the painting in a larger size.

*

Minerva Kohlhepp Teichert was born in Ogden, Utah in 1888. Later her family moved close to Pocatello Idaho where she grew up and graduated from Pocatello High School She did leave home at 14 years old and worked as a nursemaid for a family in San Francisco where for the first time she saw museum art and attended some classes at Mark Hopkins Art School. She later returned and graduated from High School. At age 19 she scraped together enough money to go to Chicago where she studied at the Chicago Art Institute. Later she went to New York to study but eventually came back to marry Herman Teichert a cowboy and strong church member. She painted a "Book of Mormon" series, covers of LDS magazines, lesson manuals, the World Room in the Manti LDS Temple, and has paintings displayed at the Museum of History and Art in Salt Lake City and was exhibited in the Immigrant Receiving Station of Ellis Island. Referred to as a Feminist she made an impact with her art. She died in 1976.

*

One of her best known works is the image of Mary Fielding Smith with her son Joseph F. Smith crossing the plains with their ox cart. To the right of the image is the spiritual guardians that protected them on their journey to Zion, hence the title "Not Alone". The painting was dated 1847 to represent the time of migration. This shows Teichert at her best as she portrays the tremendous faith and courage of the pioneer women.

The Pipeline Trail, again, this week

This trail starts at the road as you go up Millcreek Canyon. The trail goes to the North of the Canyon up between where two mountains come together. The canyon itself runs East and West. Going up the trail takes us to the top of the mountains almost. As I go up this first part of the trail often referred to as rattlesnake gulch I climb to the Pipeline trail. The pipeline is really where an old pipeline was laid to run water from way back in the canyon down to the city. Looking back towards the floor of the canyon in pictures here shows how steep this is.

A big rock where the trail turns and loops back up the side of the hill.

Looking back from the trail to the other side, South Side, of the canyon. Down towards the canyon floor. Almost to the top of the South side

Almost to the top of the Gulch Trail and almost to the Pipeline trail which will follow along the top going East and West following into the canyon.

Looking West from the top towards the Salt Lake Valley below.




Looking down just leaving the gulch trail to go on the Pipeline trail and looking down into the gulch seeing how the trail wound from one side of the gulch to the other.

Just about to step out to the canyon wall from the gulch.

Looking back West to the Valley off beyond. Near the top. Now just another 4 miles or so to where the trail comes down closer to the road and where I can then use the road below to run back to the car. The trail would be about 10 miles or more to the top and one could then to over the top of the mountains and down towards Park City which would be about a 28 + mile total run. I have blogged about this trail a few times before. It has always been one of my most favorite runs.

"the" jewerly store

This cat gets a lot of press here in our house. On the other hand the picture of Molinelli Jewelry Store takes me back to the 1950's. I often went down the street to the Chief Theater to see the show on Saturdays and walked home past this store. I a lot of times went alone and I developed a habit of going into the store for Birthdays and Christmas to get my mom a gift. I thought I did a pretty good job of picking out something and was always told I had great taste. I remember a green pin and ear rings and a red one. I wonder how good my taste really was? I know what I picked out was always appreciated and I was made to feel like I had done a good job. Good lesson in a lot of ways I suppose. Don't know why I really decided to blog about this but it is a real memory of some importance to me.

Rhetorical and Elocutionary Embellishments

I was wondering what might be something unique or original to post. This picture is an assortment of original "things".

*

The books on their side under the car came out of a one room school house that was next to my grandfather's home in a place called "Cherry Creek" Idaho. The copyright shows the first printing in 1914 and the last one 1937. I took a number of books out of this school in the 1950's when it was just sitting unused and open to the elements. These are 3 volumes of a series called "The New Wonder World". It reminded me of "World Books" or an old "Britancia" talking about a lot of subjects. The book to the left of these volumes is called "Preaching and Public Speaking" and it was written in 1898. On the title page it says that it is "A Manual for the Use of Preachers of the Gospel, and Public Speakers in General" Some of the chapters titles are: The Art of Thinking, characteristics of the Sermon, Kinds of Sermons, Methods of Communicating Thought, Analysis of the Sermon, and then "Rhetorical and Elocutionary Embellishments" Pretty good stuff and actually it is a book worth reading. This book was a gift from Joseph A. Jones to Merlin as written in his handwriting in 1952. I think from a note on the inside cover that it was purchased by my Grandfather for $2.00 in 1903. The favorite part of this book may still be ahead of me. I noticed that the last thing in the book is listed on page 435 and is "A sermon by President Wilford Woodruff" I have read several books on his life recently an really found him to be a most fascinating individual. I had forgotten this chapter in a book I have had on my self a long time. I am very anxious to read it so I think I will later today....................

*

The model of the old Ford is "cool". Wish I had had one.

Becuase we can.................

We probably went about 3 miles or so. today and the objective, photo wise, probably, was the sunflower. Of course the walk, and the time to do go out together, and the nice temperature, and the overall experience, and "because we could", were good reasons too. Near the end of the walk we found more sunflower shots and pictures were taken. Now on the other hand I had this one photo in my picture file from a couple of years back taken in our "might be a garden someday" place and it is pretty good.

*

Pigeons are unpleasant birds in so many ways. They are messy and not very interesting. Today's pigeons were worth enjoying because they were a couple of blocks away from home in a park.

*

Looking back over the week I recall a thought that I pondered a little. "the question was:

"why do we do this".

It could apply to taking a walk or to anything that is potentially enjoyable. The answer to why we go and do things again and again probably assumes that we enjoy them or that they are good to do or good for us and those assumptions might be the answers but then we do things out of habit that are not good for us. "Why" we do something could be to a large degree because "We can".

Do the good things while we can would be a good motto.

HB Riley

So today this young lady is 14 years old............................................... Her mom and her grandma both posted pictures of her and so I think I need to do the same. I found a photo in my files. Of course it originally was taken by her grandma and it just "somehow" made it to my files but at least in some small way this is something I found today that brings back some memories of this great young lady. Her Uncle is pretty great too. A lot about Riley when she was this age reminded me of Katie. What a great young lady she is...................................................

Happy Birthday Riley

"Our personal parade"

Just a couple of weeks and it will mark the annual celebration of my arrival in the valley. Karl Malone, who was born on the 24th of July, arrived in Salt Lake on the 24th of July once upon a time a long time ago and for years he mentioned how the town had put together a large parade in honor of his coming. Last night we had a party and a couple of new folks in the ward came and I had previously mentioned to them that we had the party in honor of their moving into the ward. Likewise I recall around the first of October in 2003 I arrived late one Saturday evening here in the Albuquerque area. I got up the next morning I looked up and saw at least 700 balloons in the air celebrating my arrival, with me. So there, Karl. think I did about as good as you did. My parade was certainly "higher" in the sky. Course folks come out for these parades and celebration. One picture above is "Katie" watching "Karl's" parade way back when but then it might have been before Karl came. The other picture is Mike a different years.

reflections

Tonight I went out for a walk. I guess I could call part of it a light run. My last post showed a "shadow of myself" so I suppose this one only invites thoughts of what a "shadow of myself" might be? A full head of hair could cast a shadow? Strong legs in motion. Maybe one could see wind against the face in a shadow. Maybe the shadow is running but really is lost in thought about dancing. Dancing with a friend. Moving graceful. All reflected in a memory.

layers

Today's walk with my friend of 44 years + was enjoyable. The air was a little cooler to start. Lots of pictures were taken. I like the idea of layers in this picture. My shadow, her, her camera, and the object of one of the pictures.

*

This week went by fast. Thursday was our anniversary and we went to a shop in the morning to exchange what I had picked out the day before. It was nice to get out mid week and not be working.

*