Welcome 2012

Happy New Year!

For family night last night we set some goals, personal goals and family goals in each of four areas: spiritual, educational, physical and temporal.

I saw a great tip here (scroll down about halfway to "Tracking New Year's Goals) to make posters of our goals and then decorate them with pictures that emphasize what they are about and hang up the posters.

I think we'll use regular size cardstock paper, so that when the year is over, we can put them in our scrapbooks.

We'll need to break them down into smaller weekly goals though, otherwise they might be too broad or vague to accomplish effectively.

I haven't decided, yet, if I'll post them all here.
I think it's safe to post our baby's goals. She is three months old now and has a lot to accomplish this year:
1. Be present for scripture reading, even if she's asleep (spiritual)
2. Study the English language (educational)
3. Learn to roll over (physical)
3.a. Learn to sit up
3.b. Learn to crawl
3.c. Learn to stand
3.d. Learn to walk
4. Smile & giggle (temporal)


We have a move coming up at the end of this month, so it's tempting to put off making posters until we are settled in our new house, but that seems too long to wait to be reminded of them.

I guess we should make the posters and if they get lost or ruined in the move, then we'll make them again!

I love these words from our Latter-Day Prophet, Thomas S. Monson:
Have the determination to make the effort, the single-mindedness to work toward a worthy goal, and the courage not only to face the challenges that inevitably come but also to make a second effort, should such be required. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

The rest of his article is wonderful also: Living the Abundant Life.

I look forward to the adventures that await us this year and I hope we will have a hand in creating most of those adventures, not just wait for them to come to us.
Wishing peace & prosperity and humble happiness & contentment to everyone out there!

I Like Bollywood!

Okay, so I've only seen about four or five Bollywood movies, but so far they have all been enjoyable.
Reasons why I like them:

1. There is no pre-marital sex. It's great to see a peek into a culture that still values moral standards. They are more likely to hug than kiss or...
2. they bust into a musical number! I enjoy watching their style of dancing and I'd much rather see people dance and sing than see people making out or having intimate relations which should be intimate and not a spectator sport.
3. They have subtitles, so I can watch it at a low volume. Which is also the only negative: they have subtitles, so I can't multi-task while watching, because sometimes the words go by too fast.
4. They speak English quite frequently, but they still have subtitles for it and they don't always match.

I watched "Kismat Konnection" last night, and the cute actor said something like, "The light are back on," and the subtitles said, "The electricity is back." I looked up the cute actor's name, it's Shahid Kapoor. I've only seen three of his many movies.

5. Oh, there is one more negative, occasionally the swear word that begins with an 's' escapes their lips, but on the plus side the subtitles said, "Oh no!"

Hard things are hard to do

Oh, poor neglected blog; November has almost slipped by without a howdy-do. Bother, it's not for lack of thought, it's just Facebook gets all the fun little tidbits.

I'm listening to Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson, and in the first chapter (at least I think it was the first chapter, it's a little hard to go back and verify when it's audio; if I had the actual book I would quote it right, but I digress...), he says he was raised in a family that prized doing hard things and so he tries to scale the hardest mountain to climb in the world, no not Everest, K-2 in Pakistan.

While I have no desire to climb mountains that can kill ya just for being in thin air, I want to be a person that prizes doing hard things and teaches my kids to want to do hard things.
I am raising a family that prizes watching movies. I love watching movies, but I also love going places!
How do you teach people to love doing hard things?

I guess by example, eh?

No more "I'll be happy when..."

From a wonderful talk by DIETER F. UCHTDORF, Second Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: (the golden ticket reference is referring to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
"The happiest people I know are not those who find their golden ticket; they are those who, while in pursuit of worthy goals, discover and treasure the beauty and sweetness of the everyday moments. They are the ones who, thread by daily thread, weave a tapestry of gratitude and wonder throughout their lives. These are they who are truly happy."

Gratitude and Wonder



It reminds me of a quote from Joe Versus The Volcano, when Patricia and Joe are talking late one night on the boat, she says, "My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement."
My baby looks totally amazed sometimes, when she's not asleep, probably because everything is new to her, she just can't believe her eyes.



Beauty and Sweetness of the everyday moments



My cousin said newborn babies have "magical smallness." I love that phrase.

Here is a pic of the tiny Forget Me Not flower:

Bundle of Sweetness

September is quickly coming to a close. I waited all year for September to come and it has fulfilled the promise for which I was waiting so patiently:



We welcome our little girl to the world! Eight pounds, eleven ounces of sweetness.

O.K. September, you have my permission to move on over to let October come.

Plans too great for this narrow space

Today's Google logo celebrate the patron saint of unfinished business, Pierre de Fermat.

I enjoyed this article about him.

It ends with this paragraph, (my favorite):
"So the next time someone asks you about the dishes in the sink, the half-written novel in the desk drawer, or that '67 Camaro sitting on blocks on your lawn, simply think of Fermat, and respond that you have a truly marvelous plan to finish your project, but that the day is too narrow to contain it."

Liberal Arts

I hope this link works:
Liber & Public Virtue
It is a speech given by Oliver DeMille. Shanon Brooks published it as a tribute on the 4th of July.

I think it has some really important information. You're better off going to read it yourself than trusting my synopsis, but if you really don't feel like clicking on the link, (or if it doesn't work)...

It explains what Liber means, "which means the body of citizens reading the classics and history and knowing what is required to remain free," and how it is the root of liberty, libros (books), library, and the Liberal Arts which are "the knowledge and skills necessary to remain free...
What are those arts? Well, for the founders they were the arts of reading the classics and thinking clearly and independently."


There's more there that I wish I wasn't skipping, but I didn't just want to copy the whole thing, except for this paragraph:

"History has proven that freedom is not free. It must be earned. And one of the ways the founding generation earned it was in becoming Liber: getting the kind of education required to remain free. And by education they didn’t mean diplomas or degrees, but knowledge gained from reading the classics of history, law, government, and the arts."


The next two paragraphs are really good, too, though I already took a short quote and put it above. They basically say that if we lose the understanding necessary to remain free, then we will lose our freedom.
But the classics are still there, all we have to do is dust them off and read them. Well, that and do the hard work necessary to understand them.

Then it goes on to explain Public Virtue:
"In 1776 the term Public Virtue meant voluntarily sacrificing personal benefit for the good of society."


And it has really good examples and is pretty long and I haven't read it all, yet. Ha.