Where the Wild Things Are

I love this book, and after viewing the trailier, I think I'll have to give the movie a shot. What do you think?

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 9

I love the UPS man! I love getting packages. He hardly ever stops at our house, so when he does it's quite exciting. Today he brought me a book and a movie that I got (that's right) totally free. Hee hee.

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 8

When my kids were toddlers, I wondered what it would be like to have them in school and have quiet time every, single day. Now I know. It rocks. And that's what I'm grateful for today.

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 7

Today (and many days) I'm grateful for modern medicine. Without it, my life would be very different. Maybe I wouldn't even be alive. I had a relatively easy pregnancy with John, but the delivery was very difficult. Well, these days I can use the word "difficult." I think there was a time when the word would've been "dangerous." I won't go into all the details, but I've always wondered if John and I would've died during childbirth if we'd lived 100 years ago.

Thanks to modern medicine, I don't have to worry about things like scarlet fever, meningitis, and other previously common childhood ailments that were always serious and sometimes deadly. Yes, tragedies can and do happen to children these days, but it is no where near as common as it used to be. Take a walk through an older section of any cemetery, and see if all the tiny graves there don't make you feel grateful to be living when we do.

Immunizations aren't the only modern miracle. I know there's some debate about antibiotics, but I'm grateful for them anyway. Over spring break, we discovered Chris had strep throat. By the time I took him to the doctor, the worst had passed. His throat didn't look like it was strep and his fever was gone. The rapid test in the office came back negative. I was feeling stupid for taking him down there, like I should've waited one more day. But the two-day lab test came back positive.

.

So not only do I get to be thankful for lab tests that detect a possibly serious infection I didn't know was there and I would not want raging through my little munchkin's body, but I get to be grateful for antibiotics which will get rid of it. Easily. How many times do we hear of people getting strep and think, "Oh man, that stinks." But then that's it. I mean, it's not the end of the world. They'll survive. It's nice to be at that point. Sometimes I think we forget how serious infections really could be, since antibiotics are so available (and effective). I have a friend whose grandmother died at a very young age from what was basically a tooth infection. I mean, a tooth infection!

I'm also grateful for the advances in the mental health field. Depression, in various degrees, runs in my family on both sides. In fact, on my mother's side of the family, my great-grandfather died in the mental hospital on Van Buren. There was a time when locking someone away was all people knew to do. My much older brother (half-brother, we have the same dad) had bipolar disorder and committed suicide many years ago. (There are a few issues on Brian's side too, so my poor kids are getting a double whammy.) My mother and sister both have depression (very successfully treated with antidepressants). I, myself, suffered with postpartum depression with my last two children (again, treated with antidepressants, thankfully). Postpartum was misunderstood not all that long ago, and too often ended in one tragedy or another.

.

In college, I read a story called The Yellow Wallpaper, written in 1891, about a woman suffering from postpartum depression. Because of the way they treat her (or fail to treat her), she only gets worse and ends up slipping into psychosis. (Click here if you want to read the full text.) Even in one of my favorite books, These Is My Words, there's a very minor character who suffers from postpartum depression. No one knows what to do to help her, and she ends up killing her baby. How. Awful. There's still a lack of education out there and we still hear about stories like this sometimes, but it's not for lack of effective treatment. Antidepressants are a Godsend, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, I know this is a post on gratitude and I should just be positive, but since we're on the subject of modern times and depression, I have to say for the record that I think depression is far more common now than it used to be. I think the reason for that is simple. Modern society promotes mental unwellness. We don't sleep enough, we don't exercise enough, we don't eat right, we're too busy, too overstimulated, too pressured, too isolated. I'm a big believer that all these things can affect our mental health. But I'm not one of those who gets an attitude about antidepressants being overused. At all. By all means, make corrections to your lifestyle if you suffer from depression. But no amount of willpower can overcome clinical depression, which is a physical, chemical imbalance. That's like telling someone with strep throat just to decide to get better. That ain't gonna happen. If you need antidepressants, take them and be grateful for them.

I'm sure there are more things about modern medicine I could go on about, but these are the things I've thought about many times over the years. It's amazing what doctors can do now. Every now and then I read or hear about studies people are conducting and problems doctors are trying to solve. It makes me wonder what breakthroughs the next 50 or 100 years will bring. Meanwhile, I'm grateful for all the advances which have brought us to where we are today.

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 6

Today I'm grateful for free stuff. I gotta say, we've had a lot of luck getting free stuff over the years. The best things we've gotten for free was a van, and a trip to Disneyland. Niiiiice. The most recent free thing I got was a box of Fiber One bars. Have you tried these yet? If not, don't let the disgusting-sounding name scare you off. These things are yummy. And I'll take a free box any day!

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 5

I grew up here in the Valley, but we moved around a lot. I went to 5 different elementary schools, in Mesa, Peoria, and Phoenix. My mom finally settled down so I could (thankfully!) go to the same junior high and high school here in Mesa. My dad also moved a lot (my parents divorced when I was 6) but he pretty much stayed in the East Valley (far East Mesa or Apache Junction).

As a result of all this moving around, I never really had that sense of "home" some people talk about. My husband grew up in the same house, and I've often wondered what that must be like. What's it like going back to a house you spent your childhood in? I have no idea.

However, something in my heart has attached that sense of "home" to a place anyway. That place is the Superstition Mountains.

Growing up, as I was learning directions (north, south, east, west) I didn't start at north and work my way around, I started east. Because that's where the Superstitions always were. East. And I always knew which way was east, no matter where I was and regardless of whether or not I could see the mountains. I always knew where they were in relation to myself.

I've periodically thought to myself that I'd like to climb to the top of those mountains. Except that then I'd have to actually climb to the top. I'm thinking that's pretty hard. I don't exactly want to climb them, I just want to be at the top. You know?

My favorite part of these mountains is the ridge at the top and in the middle:





Yes, this is an old picture from when it snowed a few months ago, and it's kinda dark, but it's the best I have of the whole mountain. Anyway, my favorite part is the top, just left of center. The ridges going around it look like a trail, but I have no idea if you can really get up there. Then down from there is that great big hump in the front. I always thought that whole area was connected, but no.

The other day I drove closer to this mountain than I've ever been, and I was amazed to discover I didn't know it as well as I thought I did:







Look at that great big gap between the hump and the ridges! I had no idea, and I felt like I was seeing this mountain for the first time. That it wasn't what I thought it was. But it was a good discovery. A sweet discovery. This is where I go when life is too much to handle and I just want to feel safe and comforted, and this day was no exception. This mountain eased my hurt the way it always does, but this time that was all mixed up with the wonder of seeing what I'd never seen before.

Then I noticed the gentle slope of earth leading up to that great, big hump. It felt close. Do-able. I wanted to get closer. So I followed all these little residential streets around until I got where I wanted to go, right smack dab in front of it:






As I got closer, I couldn't even see the ridges anymore! They'd completely disappeared behind the hump. (I'm sure these sections of the mountain have real names, but I don't know what they are. Someday I'll find out.)

I drove all the way to the end of the road, which pretty much ends in some person's driveway. I really wish I'd taken a picture of the house too. It was pink adobe (yes, pink, and boy did that throw me back to my childhood, because my best friend Tammy grew up in a pink house in Apache Junction, close to where my dad lived) and in front of the house was the grandest palo verde I'd ever seen. It had to be 100 years old, and had several thick branches swooping down to the ground in all directions, just inviting someone to climb on them.

Fortunately, no one was home so I was able to sit right in front of their house and enjoy this view:





Look how close I was! Look how gently the ground slopes right up to that mountain. Don't you think I could've walked up there? I really, really wanted to. In fact, I still want to. Here's what stopped me from doing it that day:

1. No where to park the car. I mean, this was in front of someone's house.
2. A barbed wire fence I'm pretty sure I couldn't climb without hurting myself. (You can see it in the picture.)
3. Being out in the middle of nowhere with snakes, scorpions and coyotes when no one in the world had any idea where I was.


So I didn't go. Later, I realized it was probably a good thing. I had sandals on, no water, and a dead cell phone.


But I may go back prepared.


Anyway, I sat there for a long time, admiring the view and wanting to get closer still. This is the view looking a bit to my left:







And a bit to my right:

Oh my gosh, gimmie!

So have I failed to come right out and say it today? I'm grateful for these mountains. I'm grateful for the way they pin me to a place and make me feel like I belong somewhere. In my heart, they're home.

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 4

It may be weird to be grateful for a website, but (as some of you already know) I love the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. I don't love every, single picture they post, but I'm very frequently awed by what I see. The universe is an amazing place, and I love being able to see things that our ancestors never would've even dreamed about.

(The above picture is Tycho's Supernova Remnant; you can click here if you want to read more about it. And as an extra bonus, I have more on APOD below.)

Happy International Year of Astronomy!

What? You didn't know it's the International Year of Astronomy? Well, that's okay. I didn't either.

Apparently, 2009 was selected as a year of celebration because 400 years ago Galileo peered through one of the first telescopes, discovering craters on the moon and rings around Saturn. I wonder what he'd think about the kinds of things we're seeing now?

In honor of the International Year of Astronomy (and because I was going to do this anyway) here is a sampling of some recent APOD pics (along with their text - thanks again NASA).

The Galactic Core in Infrared

(It is definitely worth clicking on the link for a better view of this amazing pic.)

What's happening at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, the orbiting Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have combined their efforts to survey the region in unprecedented detail in infrared light. Infrared light is particularly useful for probing the Milky Way's center because visible light is more greatly obscured by dust. The above image encompasses over 2,000 images from the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS taken last year. The image spans 300 by 115 light years with such high resolution that structures only 20 times the size of our own Solar System are discernable. Clouds of glowing gas and dark dust as well as three large star clusters are visible. Magnetic fields may be channeling plasma along the upper left near the Arches Cluster, while energetic stellar winds are carving pillars near the Quintuplet Cluster on the lower left. The massive Central Cluster of stars surrounding Sagittarius A* is visible on the lower right. Why several central, bright, massive stars appear to be unassociated with these star clusters is not yet understood.

In the Shadow of Saturn

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

A Lenticular Cloud Over New Zealand

What's happening above those mountains? Several clouds are stacked up into one striking lenticular cloud. Normally, air moves much more horizontally than it does vertically. Sometimes, however, such as when wind comes off of a mountain or a hill, relatively strong vertical oscillations take place as the air stabilizes. The dry air at the top of an oscillation may be quite stratified in moisture content, and hence forms clouds at each layer where the air saturates with moisture. The result can be a lenticular cloud with a strongly layered appearance. The above picture was taken in 2002 looking southwest over the Tararua Range mountains from North Island, New Zealand.

Planetary Nebula NGC 2818

NGC 2818 is a beautiful planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud of a dying sun-like star. It could well offer a glimpse of the future that awaits our own Sun after spending another 5 billion years or so steadily using up hydrogen at its core, and then finally helium, as fuel for nuclear fusion. Curiously, NGC 2818 seems to lie within an open star cluster, NGC 2818A, that is some 10,000 light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pyxis (the Compass). At the distance of the star cluster, the nebula would be about 4 light-years across. But accurate velocity measurements show that the nebula's own velocity is very different from the cluster's member stars. The result is strong evidence that NGC 2818 is only by chance found along the line of sight to the star cluster and so may not share the cluster's distance or age. The Hubble image is a composite of exposures through narrow-band filters, presenting emission from nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in the nebula as red, green, and blue hues.

The Bubble Nebula

Blown by the wind from a massive star, this interstellar apparition has a surprisingly familiar shape. Cataloged as NGC 7635, it is also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. This colorful telescopic image includes a long exposure through a hydrogen alpha filter to reveal details of the cosmic bubble and its environment. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Above and right of the Bubble's center is a hot, O-type star, several 100,000 times more luminous and approximately 45 times more massive than the Sun. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The intriguing Bubble Nebula lies a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia.

The Milky Way Over Mauna Kea

Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light becomes visible across the sky. Soon after your eyes become dark adapted, you might spot the band for the first time. It may then become obvious. Then spectacular. One reason for a growing astonishment might be the realization that this fuzzy swath contains billions of stars and is the disk of our very own spiral galaxy. Since we are inside this disk, the band appears to encircle the Earth. Visible in the above image, high above in the night sky, the band of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs. The bright spot just below the band is the planet Jupiter. In the foreground lies the moonlit caldera of the volcano Haleakala, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii, USA. A close look near the horizon will reveal light clouds and the dark but enormous Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. If you have never seen the Milky Way band or recognized the planet Jupiter, this year may be your chance. Because 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, an opportunity to look through a window that peers deep into the universe may be coming to a location near you.

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 3

Today I'm grateful for music. I love listening to music, singing along to the radio, and dancing to the beat. Yes, I'll even dance while I'm driving, so if you ever catch me doing this, just look away please.

.

Thanks to the invention of the radio, I can listen to music any time I want. Think of the thousands of years of history when that was not true! If you wanted music, you had to listen to street performers, go to concert halls, or make it yourself. (I think I finally understand the Victorian preoccupation with music lessons!) But in this day and age, I can listen to any kind of music, any time of the day or night.

.

Music cheers me up when I feel down, puts a smile on my face, and makes me dance around the kitchen with my giggling boys. What would my life be like without it??

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 2

Today I'm grateful for encouraging comments about my 100 day challenge. Seriously. Those comments really made me happy and made me feel even better about the challenge. You guys rock!

P.S. The picture is totally irrelevant to the post - I just thought it was funny!

100 Days of Gratitude

I'm really hoping I don't regret this, but I had this idea to post something I'm grateful for, every day for the next 100 days. In order for this to work, I'll have to make two rules for myself, right off the bat.

Rule #1: posts must be short. If I'm really going to do this every day, I'll have to make it quick. Some may not even have a photo (gasp!).

Rule #2: no cheating. What I mean by that is, no obvious things. I'm doing this because I want to expand my idea of things I should be grateful for. It's pretty much a given that I'm grateful for my wonderful husband and sweet children. I'm grateful for my testimony. You know, obviously. This list is for everything else.

So, here goes:

Day 1: I'm grateful for blogs. I just can't keep up with photo albums (let alone scrapbooks!) so this is a great way for me to preserve my family's history. Plus, blogs take on our personalities in a way photo albums can't. I love being able to throw in all the random, inconsequential things which make this my blog and no one else's.

Save the Book Babe

There are just a couple of author blogs I follow, and one of them is by the fantastic Shannon Hale. Here's a post from about a week ago:

"On April 4, I'm taking part in a really miraculous event. Faith Hochhalter, former book buyer for Changing Hands books and all around book babe, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. A flurry of authors surrounded her and declared war in her favor. I'm honored to be a part of Save the Book Babe project, a fundraiser to earn money for Faith so she can sit back and fight that nasty cancer in peace. You think you can intimidate our friend? HA! You ain't seen nothing yet! See the Book Babe website for details. The event will be in Phoenix."

Phoenix, you say????

Oh Baby.

When I click on the link (you can go to the Project Book Babe site at this link in case the above isn't working) I discover it gets even better. A practical army of authors will be at this event, including Frank Liddor (author of The Looking Glass Wars) and Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame. Now, I realize most people would be excited about the Meyer part since she's so huge, but honestly, I just want to see Shannon Hale. I love this author (if you haven't read Princess Academy or Goose Girl, you're missing out).

I'd love to say my desire to attend this event is fueled by higher intentions. Breast cancer is serious and scary, and I'm sure the Book Babe needs all the help she can get.

However.

Shannon Hale. That's the real reason. So guess where I'll be on April 4th?

Oh yeah, baby.

P.S. Brian gets mongo bonus points for encouraging me to go. I love ya babe!

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Cook

No, not Brian and I.

The new Mr. and Mrs. Cook. Otherwise known as Nate and Maryann...

I wanted to include some pictures of everyone waiting for the happy couple to come out after the sealing...

But really, it was all about them...

Aren't they cute?

(Insert pondering here, and a pause...)

You know, I tend to hold my more spiritual experiences close to the heart - a blog just feels too casual for it sometimes. Still, I have to say what a blessing it was to watch these two kneel at the altar and be married not just "till death do us part" but for time and all eternity. I believe in these things. And I believe in love deep enough to last that long.

That's my heart's desire for these two as well, that they will cherish each other, and the covenants they've made to the Lord, to the very best of their abilities.

We love you Mr. and Mrs. Cook.

Good Times

Am I the only one who thought the dog video was funny? I thought it was hilarious!! Even remembering it in my head makes me laugh. Ah well.


Anyway, this is a catch up post, but full of lovely good things, so I get to title it "Good Times" instead of some lame variation of "Catch-Up Post" which I've done far too frequently.


ANYWAY...



Several weeks ago, the Woods invited us over for FHE. We just love that family, so we had a really good time with them. We got to ride horses, cook hot dogs over a fire, ooh and aah at the marvels of a potato gun (loaded with rolled up socks), and in general enjoy the company. :)

A few weeks ago, several of us took Lisa out for her birthday. We saw "New in Town" which I have a feeling is a lot more fun when you're with a group. Also more fun with a group is stumbling upon a kiddie play area (minus the kiddies).

A couple Saturdays ago (hmm, all of these were a few weeks ago or more, which makes me wonder what we've been up to lately - nothing interesting apparently) ... as I was saying... A couple of Saturdays ago I woke up thinking we needed to do something fun after a rather grueling week, so we packed a lunch and headed up to the river. Despite it being a Saturday full of glorious weather and lots of people with the exact same idea we had, we didn't have a hard time finding a nice secluded spot to relax for a few hours.

John actually found some shells.

Ben had fun throwing great big rocks in the water...

Since this was an impromptu activity, I didn't think to bring a change of clothes for the boys. So I told them to keep their clothes dry and not go in past their knees.

.

Are you snickering at me yet?

.

Even as I said it, I had a funny feeling I was fighting a losing battle. I mean, we were at the river. What was I thinking?

.

But I had hope because they were pretty good at first...

Ben was the first to "accidentally" lose his balance and get more or less soaked down his front.

You can see he's very upset about it.

John managed it too, not long after...

Chris was a little too timid for this, but it didn't matter. At this point I didn't care how wet they got. I know defeat when I see it.

Good thing.

(Note to self: next time, just bring some towels.)

Daddy tried getting Chris to go in past his knees, but he wanted nothing of it...

But he had fun anyway...

At one point (despite what Mom and Dad said) John was convinced he had a fish caught at the end of his stick...

... but no.

From where we were sitting, we could see a strip of land just under the water. Brian decided to see if he could walk to it, or if the water was too deep:

Ta-da!

This is another view from where we were sitting:

It was too enticing not to follow...

There's something comforting about walking a path like this barefoot.

It was a great day.

And on our way back to the car, guess what we saw?

Wild horses.

Gee, all three of these events involved horses (if you count the picture of Nylene that makes me want to say "Ride 'em cowboy!"). Perhaps this post should've been titled "Happy Trails" instead. :)