Under the Skin

I told you that we were arranged in order of hero to practical saint.  The more I learned about Megan and her story, the more in awe of her I was.  Let me set the scene of our meeting: I had briefly met Megan last year at this conference, but I hadn't really gotten to know much about her.  She was pretty cool, but I hadn't really thought much about it.  Then, this year, we were doing this activity at the director's conference.  It was a two-circles-ice-breaker type thing.  Our circle rotated, and I ended up with her.  They told us to tell each other a time when we had to change our camp direction mid-stream because of things out of our control.  She told me to go first.  Here I was talking about that awful time when we had to completely change our entire schedule because we got rained out and the power was out, and it got insanely cold.  Oh, woah is me.   Then, she tells me.  Well, her camp is in Nigeria.  They had ...

       The second part of the series of Inspiring people!  This is an amazing couple who do great things, and I have to tell you about them. Adriana was born in Romania, but when she was a child, Ceausescu was in power.  Her fther was imprisoned by Ceausescu for participating in anti-government, underground radio production.  When she was nineteen, her father's release was negotiated by Kissinger--yes, that Kissinger--but part of the agreement was that the family would never return to Romania on pain of death.  If you think about that, not much of a punishment at the time.  She never intended to go back to Romania.  But after marrying Thomas Henderson and having a great life with him, she told him that she felt like she needed to go back to Romania.  Even after Ceausescu was gone, there was something missing in Romania.  And that's when, after Thomas had retired, Thomas and Adriana Henderson decided to go visit Romania...

This weekend, I had an opportunity to attend a conference in Phoenix, AZ.  Many of you know that I am the director of Camp Little Oak, a volunteer-run non-profit camp for girls with bleeding disorders (and carriers and siblings).  The conference was for people who run these kinds of camps--camps for kids with bleeding disorders.  It was an amazing conference (always is), with lots of great ideas, guidance, advice and networking.  It truly makes me a better camp director, and hopefully everyone else who attends as well.  While there, I had the opportunity to talk a bit (various levels) to several people, but three (kind of four) of them are the types of people who you meet and think, "You are an inspiring person." So, over the next three days, I will share the stories and missions of these people.  They are somewhat arranged in order of hero to absolute-saint this time.  Our first person is Chris Bombardier.  I had heard the name before and thoug...

The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putre- fying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.   I haven't been writing with my week on. But, now, it's my week off and time for an update.  Especially on our reading.  We couldn't not have reading updates.  That would be tragic.  However, I am almost done with books that I finished before the New Year, and then we can start taking care of the backlog over here. I love John Steinbeck.  Oh, how I love ...

Right after I graduated from college, I wrote a post abou t ten random things from college that I didn't regre t.  But, there are things from college that I do regret, and hopefully, college students going in will take my advice. And it's not true that you should live with no regrets.  There will always be things in life that you simply regret. 1. TA Review Sessions I didn't never go to a review session, but I didn't go to them as much as I should have.  I used them for test prep, but here's my piece of advice:  For every course that you have a TA, go to a review session every week if you can.  When I started learning the value of these things--not until they were almost gone for me because we didn't have TAs in the MLS program--there were even courses that I went to a review for every lecture.  Don't think that they don't have value because the TA isn't sitting there and just giving you hints about the test. Even if they do nothing but answer ot...

When I do scripture study, I read one chapter out of the Book of Mormon, and one chapter out of the Bible.  I know a lot of people like to do the topic-based scripture study, and there's nothing really wrong with that.  But I like running into topics that you never thought would be in there.  Especially in chapters that you had kind of written off as filler.  Don't pretend you don't know the chapters of which I speak.  Right now, I have the privilege of having one of the best combination of Book of Mormon and Bible. In the Bible, I am in Psalms.  In the Book of Mormon, I'm in 2 Nephi.  And both of those are perfectly gorgeous collections of scripture.  Today, I was thinking something of grace as I read.  Probably the biggest criticism of Mormonism that I hear, especially from Evangelical Christians, is about grace.  Here's a little tidbit that I came across in college, though.  When I was a--I think--a sophomore in college, I took...

We haven't had a Falling With Style segment for awhile (though you could possibly see the entire 25 Days of Christmas Baking as one long Falling With Style segment).  So, I decided to do one. This ties in with New Year's Resolution of learning Piano Technic.  So, in the John Thompson book, they use the song Dark Eyes to teach the "drop arm attack," which is when you actually lift your arm off of the keyboard and then drop it back on.  So, I did it.  Not perfectly.  It was hard at first, but after I learned the attack, it actually improved the song a lot, and did make it easier to play well. 

“I’d sooner not try than fail. They may think I’m stupid, but I’m not. Knowing I’m not stupid is enough for me; I’m enough for me.”   My names are given to me, but they are also the names that I choose to take. And the choosing makes all the difference.” Book reviews are getting knocked off the list for my week off.  While I read more in order to require more book reviews to go on the list. Sahara's teachers say that she needs special ed.  Sahara's mother says that Sahara is really smart, she is just lazy.  Both are kind of true. And no teacher believes in Sahara, except for Miss "Pointy."  Sahara Jones is a typical troubled child.  Implied to be African American (but I don't know that they ever came right out and said it).  Her father ran away.  Lives on the wrong side of Chicago.  You know the type.  But she wants to be a writer.  And yet, she never writes in her journal at school, to which Miss Pointy simply resp...

"Imagine! In each of us lies the potential to do superhuman things. Feats of great physical daring, art, science. The ability to defy laws of nature.”    We have to keep up the book reviewing.  I like books, guys.  If that bothers you, then you don't have to read any post that starts "Book Review."  However, I think it is still a worthwhile activity. Also worth mentioning, that this book review is exercising clause 1 in my book review charter that I'll write someday.  It says that we can review an incomplete book series, so long as the rest of the series has not yet been published. I got into Seven Wonders via Percy Jackson, to be honest.  Let me tell you a story.  A few years ago, I was a nanny to two little boys for a summer.  At the end of the summer, the family gave me, as a going away present, a Barnes and Noble's gift card.  I knew some of what I wanted to get, but I didn't know everything.  I was still in co...

"A curse for love, cast in my own hand and faith and flesh. A curse of love, on the house of the guilty. Let them feast on love, as crows feast on the dead. Perhaps I am, after all, mad." (Several times when reading this book, I found quotes that I thought, "That's it.  That's our quote." But I need to write them down, because I can't find them now . And that has happened with other books...you think I'd learn my lesson).   I know I still have a stack of reviews to write, and this one is not first in line, because I just finished in yesterday.  However, I wanted to write its review while it was still fresh in my mind, because it had lots of thoughts and feels to it. We all know the story of Romeo and Juliet .  Or do we?  We just know a part of it.  This is a Romeo and Juliet retelling from the perspective of Benvolio. And really, Romeo and Juliet had no clue what was going on. Oh the mixed feelings on this one.  I was skeptical.  Bec...

With 2015 upon us, I have my goals for 2015.  I have decided that this year I will put my goals on my blog--at least the not extremely personal ones.  Why?  Because they have found that if you make yourself accountable to someone else (even if you merely feel accountable to them), you are much more likely to actually achieve your goals.  And I've found that this is true.  When I do NaNoWriMo, I feel more accountable to actually doing it, because everyone on the website can see my word-count (even though I'm sure none of them care).  When I put my reading goals on the goodreads.com reading goal function, I more than met it.  One of my friends did this as well, and she also included her "themes" for the year, which is a concept that I'd never thought of.  However, I kind of like it.  But it shall take some thought to come up with the themes, so maybe later. So, here we are: Health Goals Eat at least one meal every day: Judge me all y...

“It's been my experience that those people who seem the most 'normal' are in fact the most dangerous.”  Now is the winter of my content.  I love winter.  And I love reading books in winter (or any time of the year, for that matter). This is one of my "grabbed off the shelf of the library for no reason" finds.  And it was a great find, to be sure.  The Books of Elsewhere grabbed me, and I love each and every moment of it. Olive Dunwoody and her mathematician parents have moved into the old broken down house where Mrs. McMartin died.  They bought it with everything still inside, including the paintings that move .  Olive discovers that, with the use of special spectacles, she can go inside the world within those paintings, which she calls "Elsewhere."  She, and her friends she makes along the way, including the three cats, Horatio, Leopold and Harvey, guardians of the house who can talk, must work to protect the people of Elsewhe...