Scoreboard: Boys 2, Girls 4

That's right, Debra's having a girl! We are excited for our sixth grandchild to arrive in early February. This is one lucky baby, to have Debra and Randy as parents.

2009 Block of the Month Quilt

I just finished my block of the month quilt. I take a class at a local quilt store (Quilts, Quilts, Quilts). You go once a month and get the material and pattern to make a block. By the end of the year, you have twelve blocks. I got mine all made up, then I quilted it yesterday. I love how crisp it looks. Plus, it's red.

Size: approx. 75 X 87
Completed: Sept 8, 2009

"Build Yourself a Book Nest to Forget the World Without"--Abraham Cowley

My favorite assignments from Travelin'Oma are the book assignments.

In my new house I have a room which serves as my library. It’s something I’ve always wanted, and I love that room. It is full of books. When I have friends ask for a book recommendation we go in there and browse. I ask them what kind of books they like, and then we pick out a few.

That’s my public library. My private library is in my bedroom. Most of it is in a compartment of my headboard behind my pillows. A little of it is on a shelf in the cupboard beside my bed. These are books I do not loan out. Almost all of them are duplicates of ones in the “public library.” These books are the ones I own so they are handy when I need them.

The books on my Desert Island List *(books I would want to have with me if I were stranded on a desert island) are on these shelves, plus a few others. I have a couple of books there that are out of print, and I’ve paid a pretty price for a used copy of them (they were worth it). A few of the books are just fun books that strike my fancy every once in a while. Most of these books remain in these special locations, but there is a little moving in and out as a new book gains favor, or perhaps an old one really does start to seem old and worn out.

My private library is where I turn for reading when I need comfort and reassurance and I know I can get it from one of those books. They provide a reading safety net for me that I don’t often need, but when I do, they are good to have around.

*A few of the books I have on hand: Little Women by Alcott, Mrs. Mike by Freedman, Jane Hope by Gray, Pride and Prejudice by Austen, And Still We Live by MacInnes, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, This is All I Ask by Kurland, Two-Part Invention by L’Engle, These Is My Words by Turner

My home town

More homework from Travelin'Oma. This one is late (due yesterday) so I'm still hoping for partial credit. :)

(My hometown has changed so much since I left, that I don’t know if what I would recommend for people to see would still be there – so I’m going to pretend it is still mostly like it was when I left 34 years ago.)

Port Hueneme (pronounced why-nee-mee), California is a very small town. The biggest thing it has going for it is that it is the location of the Pacific Seabee Base, a branch of the navy that is a mobile construction battalion. It is also a natural deep sea port. Port Hueneme is about a ten minute drive from end to end, so there are just a few things to see, and if you don’t look sharp you’ll miss it all.

If you want to eat while you are there, I recommend Foster’s Freeze. Their fries are excellent, and they make a great burger. In fact, it is the first place I ever ate a hamburger that had more than catsup and mustard on it. They are known for their soft-serve ice cream cones, and you can get one dipped in chocolate – the kind that hardens around the outside of the ice cream, and chips off as you try to eat it. If you don’t feel like an ice cream, just across the parking lot is Terry’s donuts. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a better donut than at Terry’s. If you prefer fresh seafood, you can go down to the wharf and buy it fresh off the boats there. You might be able to pick up some swordfish, or even a lobster or two.

Hueneme has beach that is unusual because it is located on a curve of land so that the beach runs from east to west instead of north to south. You can do some surfing there, as well as body surfing or just playing in the water. There is a pier you can walk out on and just enjoy the weather and being near the ocean. Because it is the Pacific Ocean, the water is not very warm most of the year. Occasionally by August it gets pretty warm, but then you have to watch out for all the jelly-fish. If the grunion are running, make sure you do that one night.

The locals are very friendly. Ask them what they like, and they can point you in that direction. Good luck!

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Whew! This is another fasten-your-seatbelt, hold-on-to-your-hat book - just like The Hunger Games. Collins gets five stars for her storytelling. Both of these books had me dreaming about them at night as I was reading them.

I do have two negatives on the book. One is that because I had to wait so long for the sequel, I had forgotten some things. Collins did not do a great job of filling in some of that information. If I'd reread The Hunger Games, I would have been fine. But I didn't have time to do that. There are other books out there I want to get read. Lots of writers manage to fill in just enough details on sequels to keep us refreshed on the previous book(s).

Spoiler alert: don't read farther if you haven't read this book yet.

I give Collins one star for leaving me hanging again. If she does it again on the next book, I'm done with the series. A book can feel complete and still manage to make you want to wait in line at midnight for the sequel. (Harry Potter and the Twilight series come to mind).

Thursday addendum - I just read that this is a trilogy. That makes it just a tiny bit better. I was ready to be upset about it dragging on and on. Now I won't have to be...

Working hard, or hardly working?

Week 2 for Travelin'Oma's school. Here's today's assignment.

We counseled our daughters: there are two qualities to look for in a potential husband. One, that he adores you and thinks you are too good for him, and two, that he is a hard worker. When we were at an activity and the cleanup process started, my husband would point to all the young men who were helping without being asked, and told whichever daughter was at hand that any of those boys were husband candidates. The boys who continued to play around or had to be coerced to help were not possibilities.

Lucky me, my husband fills both of those qualifications, without a doubt. I’m not sure he got so lucky. I certainly pass the adoration test, but quite frankly I am innately lazy. As a consequence, I have to work hard at being a hard worker. I sincerely believe that in life hard work is the only thing that gets you through some of the tough times. I think that the ability to power through and get the job done breeds success—on many levels. We need to work hard, not just on the physical side of life, but also the intellectual and spiritual sides.

I’ve tried hard to overcome my laziness. Most of the time I hide it pretty well, but deep down I know it’s lurking, just waiting to burst forth. In the meantime I savor every time my husband says to me, “Wow, you are amazing. You are such a hard worker.”

The real me

Here's my assignment from Travelin'Oma. She's making us dig deep inside. Sometimes it's easier to skim off the top!

How did I become who I am? There are so many factors that it’s hard to narrow it down. I feel like every experience in life molds us. Even passing through certain airwaves can make a difference.

We moved to the Salt Lake area a few years ago after having lived in the Seattle area for over 20 years. It was very scary, and I was missing my sense of self a little bit. I remarked once to a friend that I felt overwhelmed, and wondered if I could fit in here. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Don’t you dare sell yourself short! You are every bit as wonderful as you ever were, and you have an enormous amount to offer to any place you go.” It was just what I needed to hear.

My parents somehow made me feel like there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do or be. I just had to decide, get to work, and it was possible. They weren’t overly lavish in their praise, but I certainly knew they thought I was capable of anything. It was the perfect way to build my confidence. For eighteen years I was very self-assured.

Then in the middle of my senior year of high school, a horrifically embarrassing thing happened to me. I almost can’t even write about it. It makes me squirm in my chair to think of it. I’ve only shared it with a handful of people that I trusted explicitly. It is never something I would want to be reminded of, or have thrown back in my face. It still makes me cry the few times I’ve told it. I think to myself – logically things like this happen to people all the time and they simply laugh it off, and never think of it again. For some reason that wasn’t so for me. Thirty-four years later it is still painful.

That event took a toll on my self-esteem. Not a huge toll, but it did effect how I feel about myself. Most of the time it’s negligible, but sometimes it rears its ugly head. I wonder how one hour of my life can put that big a dent in the wonderful, building, eighteen year foundation my parents built along with the fabulous experiences I have had since then. I look at that experience as my foundation for the “what will people think of me” part of myself.

Mostly I don’t worry about what others think. But perhaps there is a positive aspect of the “what will other people think of me” mentality. We do need to be conscious of those around us in our way of living. And if what they think of me helps to build me and make me stronger, then that is a good thing. But if I diminish myself in the process of trying to prove myself to others, it is not positive. Knowing the difference is what makes the difference in my life.

Partial retraction

I stand corrected. For now. Two of my daughters have expressed indignantly that I have spoken on their behalf unfairly. They claim they don't dislike Little Women. One tried when she was too young, and hasn't read it since, and one hasn't finished it yet (how many years now?).

Hmm, they've heard all their lives how much I love it. They haven't even tried it once. I'll believe them. For now.

But no full retraction is coming until I get a full endorsement of the book.

Time will tell.

Meanwhile I may consider adding nieces and nephews to the will (sparse though it is) if they can endorse Little Women. (Consider being the operative word. )