stoutmtc

070428 - Different Day

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:50:00 +0000

With a multitude of really neat options for tonight, I'm at home with the kids about to watch a DVD ("Meet Joe Black" as it happens). Beth is still not well and it turns out Bryan has a Choir concert in Woodbridge tonight.

Spent the morning with Annie helping clean up a yard so a wheelchair ramp can be installed for a family where the grandmother now has multiple sclerosis and the grandson has muscular dystrophy. It's amazing how much yard work a mere 12 people can do - particularly when several of them are guys. We took two truck-beds full of yard waste and several trashcans to the county dump and there's still a major load by the curb. I'm so glad I live in a townhome. On the other hand, I learned that Bryan likes it when I do gardening. At least, I assume that's what elicited the hug and the comment "You are more precious than rubies" when he found me spreading mulch left over from the morning's activities around our azaleas.

The Elders were supposed to come eat with us, but Bryan had to leave for his concert before they would get here. And it's against the rules for them to be in a home if there isn't an adult of the same gender present. So we packed up the food for them to take with them. Honey-steamed carrots, whole-grain rotini in a mushroom/garlic/mozzarella 'sauce' and cut bits of hot dog (taking some shortcuts). Then there was yogurt in token of the ice cream they would have gotten had they eaten at our house, and a bottle of pomegranate-apple sparkling stuff (from Ikea).

Bryan's been reading me a book ("The Sharing Knife: Beguilement" by Lois McMaster Bujold). It's irritating because the 'voice' keeps trading between the female lead character and the male lead character. And they have (in one day) fallen in 'love' with one another. So they are constantly thinking about 'things.' It would bother me in any case, but the female lead has just had a miscarriage. The morals of the piece really bother me. I guess it is also because I have just been writing a miscarriage myself, and I've had a miscarriage. Somehow I don't recall the experience being consistent with the desire and arousal being portrayed in the book (PG-13, but still…). I presume there is something worthwhile that will happen in the book eventually.

070402 - Great evening

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 02:33:00 +0000

Tonight we held a surprise birthday part for Brother Don Redd, who recently turned 85. It was a mini concert over at the Evans' home put on by members of the ward. Kate Thurgood started it off by singing a medley of songs from The Sound of Music, followed by Eddy Ward singing Second-hand Rose. Next Janell sang Someone to Watch Over Me and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Bryan and I sang a capella A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Copeland's I Bought Me a Cat. Omar Salam followed by singing Ol' Man River and Makin' Whoopee. While Loren Stevenson got ready to play his cello, Julene Updike played the first part of Debussy's Claire de Lune. Several of us were sad that Loren finished setting up before Julene completed the piece. Then Loren played a Scherzo from a book of Cello Competition pieces. Really fast.

JD Evans had been thinking of singing something, but decided not to sing Sweet Violets, a funny piece Bryan and I had sung for Winn Redd's birthday before she died. After the prayer on the refreshments, he was saying he had always wanted to sing Some Enchanted Evening, which we started to sing together. It was really nice. Then a fabulous cake and fun conversation before we decided to leave.

When we got home, we shared some of the refreshments with the kiddies, then walked up to the dog park with the green laser pointer and the binoculars to look at the stars in the night sky (those we could see given that there was a full moon). We were able to see the Summer Triangle, the Winter Hexagon, Orion, Canis Major, the Pleiades, Auriga, Arcturus, Spika, Venus, Gemini, Taurus, Saturn, Leo, Ursa Major, Polaris, and several others. So fun.

070330 - Cell phones and such

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:53:00 +0000

I checked my cell phone and it told me I had put roughly 150 minutes on it yesterday, along with at least another 30 minutes on the cordless phone after I got home. When I was done, my arm hurt - not surprising, I suppose.

I've been not getting adequate sleep the past few days. Too many things to do, not enough time to do them all correctly. I am having a blast. But right now my brain feels like it is stuck in 2nd gear.

070326 - Memories of Lehi

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:05:00 +0000

For better or worse, there is nothing about the coins that makes me nervous (seeing sacred symbolism from the temple in the open would make me nervous the way it would horrify me to see a classified document lying open in a public street). When I was a kid we lived on a dairy farm (~200 acres) in Lehi, Utah that my dad bought as a graduate student (some men indulge in drinking binges, my dad bought property...). Anyway, there was an old headstone in the front yard that had a sacred symbol on it. It made my mother 'nervous' to see this symbol of eternity openly displayed. So she placed the stone on its face. Soon animals started dying. I'd have to ask her to find out how many died and how quickly. But she placed the stone upright again and cleaned it. And the animals stopped dying.

Memories of little mink feet drying in the eaves of the garage, the dead cow that had died of bloat, watching the bugs skittering across the surface of the water in the irrigation channels, the smell of silage, pulling apart cattails (in my bedroom - made an horrific mess), the large silvery truck that would come each morning (and evening?) to collect the milk, looking at Mount Timpanogos and trying to see the 'indian face' on the side of the mountain after I heard the legend of Timpanogos cave.

Unfortunately, my dad had some completely irresponsible renters a couple of years ago who apparently had OCHD and a desire to 'save' horses. The place now looks like a war zone and is fouled with layers of fecal matter.

But I found the legend of Timpanogos - [http://tinyurl.com/2bjpqh] The myth was actually created by Brigham Young University professor Eugene Roberts in 1922. He made up the tale on the spot while sitting with a group of hikers around a campfire.
___________________________________

Long, long ago there were Indians that lived on Timpanogos. Every year they gave a sacrifice to the Great God Timpanogos.

This one year it was very dry, and the Indians thought the great God was angry.

The Chief had a young daughter, who was very beautiful. She was of age to be chosen. All the young girls in the tribe were blindfolded and given an opportunity to choose a pebble from a pottery dish. The young princess, Utahna, chose the black pebble. It was her fate to go upon the mountain.

All her tribesmen were sad and they wanted someone else to go instead. But, she bade her friends goodbye and ascended the mountain, winding her way towards the highest peak.

When she reached the top, she knelt in prayer. Begging for rain, she held her arms outstretched. A handsome young brave had seen her and followed her. "Please do not jump!" he said.

She thought he was the Great God of Timpanogos. He led her to a cave. Here they lived together, because they had fallen in love.

One day he was attacked by a bear and injured. Because he was hurt, she knew he wasn't the Great God Timpanogos. She cared for him until he got well. Then she left one morning very early to ascend the mountain.

When the sun was up, she reached up her arms out and leaped to the crags below. The young warrior gathered her broken body in his arms and carried her to the cave. Here the two hearts were made into one, as we can still see the Great Heart of Timpanogos.

If you look closely at the mountain, they say you can still see the outline of Utahna in Mount Timpanogos, where she was found by Red Eagle.

070325 - Miscellaneous

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 03:24:00 +0000

I'm really excited about the upcoming Messiah sing-along. I like music that is challenging but I also like it when the group sounds good together.

We had a great time this weekend going to a movie (Breach) on Friday night, going to the temple Saturday AM for veil worker training (all the lockers were taken - they had gotten RSVPs from about 40 people and 1200 showed up (600 men and roughly as many women given that the lockers were all taken). It's fun to see the temple used past capacity. And the sister 'directing' us where/how to go was hilarious. At one point she raised her voice and said, "I shouldn't yell in the temple, but..." and she proceeded to tell us all in the crowded hallway what was going on. When they finally were able to open a session for folks other than the male veil workers, she stood at the door after the spanish group was seated and said, "Who traveled more than 3 hours to get here... Two hours... One and a half hours..." At that point, they opened it up for general folks to enter. That session was in spanish, which was fun for me. I'm not fluent, but I pretty good at comprehension, so I didn't use headphones. And it helps that I know what is being said. But maybe I shouldn't have volunteered to be in the prayer circle... Brother Redd was officiating. I think I did OK, but there were a few phrases where I had no clue what I was saying.

I was hoping to get up to a coin show a friend had invited us to. But given the delays because of the crowd at the temple, we ended up going straight to the V's for Rusty's birthday cake/present party and then went to the friend's home for dinner. My friend brought his nickel collection and a jeweler's loop, and I had fun learning about numismatics and examining the range of mint and almust uncirculated coins he had ammassed.

Later than night we went on to watch the local high school production of Beauty and the Beast. It was really well done, and in some points compared favorably with the broadway production. The girls had a blast collecting autographs afterwards.

Vale

070320 - I'm sad

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:08:00 +0000

I knew Bennett was the man we love to hate, but I had never fully realized how much of the burden the Saints bore (and still bear) was directly caused by Bennett, much less how many broken hearts and deaths and general hardship in past history can be traced to Bennett. During the house concert the lyrics to one of the songs went something like "I wasn't me that killed him. I just aimed and pulled the trigger. It was the bullet that did the killing." That's the way I feel about so much of what happened after May 1842 (actually, after May 1841 when the affair with Sarah Pratt started). Bennett took aim and did everything in his power to destroy Joseph and everything Joseph was trying to do.

I'm writing a chapter in my book where my main character is going to learn her sister died, that the editor of a major paper is suspicious of the concentration of powers in Nauvoo, that a respected friend is having an affair and has apparently induced an abortion, and that Bennett, the man who proposed to her, is not only the father of the aborted child but the one who prepared the abortifacent.

070319 - This is for science

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:22:00 +0000

Funny recollection that Bryan reminded me of yesterday as a result of the Marriage class. There was a period of time after Bryan and I got engaged when we agreed to not be physical - reduce probabilities of doing stuff neither of us rationally wanted to be doing prior to marriage. But I was terrified that Bryan's willingness to do this might be an indication that he was really gay or something (I mean, he was 36 and I was only the third girl he'd ever kissed...). So I expressed my concern that, after marriage, he might not be interested in sex. Being the data-driven man he often is, his reply was, "And what about that would bother you?"

Hah!

070306 Writing too late at night.

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:16:00 +0000

E-mails written too late at night sometimes result in stuff that shouldn't be sent.

070227 Sick Day

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:30:00 +0000

Blech. I hate feeling ill. I have traditionally been tense, speaking from a physiological rather than psychological standpoint. The trick for the past several days now is that my gastrocnemius muscles on both sides have decided to become painfully tight. Makes movement rather painful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastrocnemius

Fortunately, this pain is not indicative of any nasty problem. So with adequate rest and stretching and meds over the next several weeks, my legs should be fine.

Takes the wind out of a body, though.

070223 Memorial

noreply@blogger.com (daughterofheaven) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 04:25:00 +0000

Today I attended the memorial for a friend's baby, Regan Ka'uloa Aust (whose middle name is Hawaiian for 'mine forever.') Regan had Trisomy-13 - a chromosomal disorder that 'is not consistent with life.' The service was beautiful, celebrating the 45 minutes the Austs had with their son before he died. Apparently only 400 babies a year who suffer from this condition are even born alive. Which makes it amazing that two such babies have been born in our congregation with this condition in the past few years.

It's been over 12 years since Arthur died, and I no longer cry when I pass through the veil in the temple. But events like tonight's memorial can still bring the tears to my eyes. Both JD Evans and Ken Snyder commented about my crying (they each gave remarks during the service). It wasn't so much that I was 'reliving' what happened to Arthur, but perhaps that having experienced Arthur's death I was more easily moved to tears as I considered the journey the Austs have gone through.

Are going through.

Vale --