Goal Met

There were moments when I thought my 20 book goal as too easy. Yet as December rolled around and I'd only cleared 18 books, I was worried that I wouldn't make it. So I scoured my Goodreads list of books to-read and checked them out. And don't you know it? I read 4 this month bringing my total for the year to 22 books.

I'm proud as punch!

I did fall down on the job of providing any sort of a review of the books, so let me recap my favorites from this year.

1. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle--this makes my list of the best books I've ever read!

2. Autobiography of a Face--this story is a work of art crafted by a young author who had jaw cancer as a kid. Despite the obviously sad theme, I found this book surprisingly uplifting.

3. The Safe Keeper's Secret--I have long been a fan of Sharon Shinn.

4. Outliers: A Story of Success--I loved this book. Even though it's non-fiction, it read like a novel and I have found myself quoting it more than any other book I've read this year. I really think every teacher and principal ought to read it.

5. Finding Your Own North Star--this is written by Martha Beck, who is the late Hugh Nibley's apostate daughter. Knowing this going in can make this book a more enjoyable read for an LDS reader. Still, I loved it. She doesn't say anything disparaging about the LDS church and, in fact, uses many examples in her book from years that she was a member.

If you're looking for a good read and not necessarily a literary masterpiece, I'd also recommend The Year of Magical Thinking, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World and The Wednesday Letters.

I thought Running Out of Time and Ella Enchanted were very well written children's books.

Just so you know, some of these books I hated.

1. The Secret--way, way too new-agey and weird.

2. Cinderella (as if you didn't already know the story)--this maybe the lamest book I've ever read. It's even too lame for children.

3. Trolley Car Family--my children forced me to keep reading this one aloud but it was terrible.

4. Life by Design--the beginning of this book isn't bad, so that fooled me into thinking that if I could just get through the slow middle that it would redeem itself in the end. No such luck. The ending was worse than the middle. The authors, I kid you not, spout entire paragraphs of cliches. Seriously. They might say: Let's talk about time, then spend 3 paragraphs quoting every single dopey saying about time ever said. AHHHHH! It was torture, but I finished it.

5. The Joy Diet--also a book of Martha Beck's but in this one, she lambasts the church more than once. But I also thought the whole premise of the Joy Diet was weak.

Also I wouldn't recommend Rich Dad, Poor Dad or Letter to My Daughter, although to say that I hated them would be a stretch.

Now to find another achievable goal for 2010...

Sunday Synopsis

It's difficult to sum up half a month and I keep swearing (and by swearing I mean promising because I don't swear in real life) that I am going to catch up on my blogging, so here is my attempt sans pictures.

Baby Beck turned 2 on Nov 29 and has, thereby, lost his babyhood. However, since he still sleeps in a crib and wears a diaper I will continue to call him Baby Beck.

Wendell turned 34 on Dec 3rd. It was a lame birthday, as usual, because he never gives me good gift ideas and as I sit here I can't even remember what I bought him. I do remember that he was bummed that he got no iTunes gift cards.

Baby Beck split his head open on a Tuesday. This stinks because I haven't taken his 2 year pictures yet. So now they will have a giant red scar right in the middle of his forehead. Only the scar is getting better rapidly, so I continue to put off his 2 year pictures. Perhaps when he's 2 and a half...

On a Wednesday, Wendell and I were called to school because Nathan was misbehaving. Badly. He had left the school building and refused to come back in. Now I am emailing Nate's teacher on a regular basis. She recapped one week for me on a Friday and her email was 21 paragraphs long. Or so it seemed. Apparently, there is long list of stuff Nathan does wrong. I have the distinct feeling that she's going to hammer him on his ALL application.

I finished my Christmas shopping Christmas Eve. At 9:00 pm I realized I was one present short for Anson. Wendell and I scrambled and found a video game that Wendell had bought last year that we saved for another occasion. On Christmas morning I realized that we were one present short for Nathan, but luckily we had one gift labeled "To the Wood Children" and Nate got to open it and all was well.

Here is my cheer of Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my friends and other people who read my blog.

The Sweetest Thing...

Emma had a Ballroom dance assembly on Tuesday, so we got her all gussied up including putting her hair in a bun. At breakfast, Nathan (7) looked Emma up and down and said, "Emma, you're SO beautiful."

And then I laughed so hard...

On Thursday, Wendell was outside in the freezing cold assessing his lights and debating how to hang them.

"There's a person in our backyard," Annika informed me.

"Who is it?"

"It's DADDY!!" she squealed.

"What's he doin' out there?" I asked her.

She didn't know and the curiosity was killing her. She put her coat on the slipped on some Sunday shoes, then marched outside. It was only a few minutes before they were back in the house.

"Don't worry, Mom," Annika said as she came in red-faced, "he's just freezin' his tail pipe."

Fear and Following the Spirit

In the 2009 Nov Ensign, Elder Scott declares that you can not feel the direction of the Holy Spirit while simultaneously feeling anger, hate, fear, or pride. He described it the same as trying to eat a grape and a jalapeno pepper together while attempting to discern both flavors.

The anger, hate and pride part make perfect sense to me. But fear? In the "scary" world in which we live today many of us, yours truly included, do a lot of things based on fear. For example, I drive Anson to scouts every Wednesday even though it's only 2 blocks from my house because going to scouts would require that he cross a relatively busy street at dusk.

As an avid consumer of news I can tell you that studies show that dusk and dawn are the two times of day in which pedestrian/auto accidents are most common. I can also tell you that one of the leading causes of death to 8-11-year-olds is accidents involving cars. So, once a week, I drive Anson to cub scouts out of fear.

But I think it is possible for many good Christian people to get fear and revelation mixed up. We think, I'm afraid to move, or I'm afraid to travel and we misinterpret that as inspiration. It comes out as--oh, God doesn't want me to (move, go on the trip, etc.) so he is making me feel fear.

But fear and faith can not exist in the same space. I remember reading an article where the author, illustrated this point with a story. A very nice and loving couple were parents of a daughter who was an alcoholic. She desperately needed intervention, but would be angry when those who loved her most defied her wishes to save her life. Because of the fear of that anger, this family froze and for a long time did nothing. Finally, with counseling, the parents realized that they must act out of love rather than wait out of fear.

My grandma illustrated this point perfectly in her monthly email to the family. She wrote that she was nervous about a trip my uncle had planned in the Alaskan wilderness. For a week he would be away from all contact to the outside world, flown in by "bush pilots" in a little plane.

He left on the trip and Grandma continued to panic and worry. She worried that the plane would crash and she worried it would snow and they would be stuck. She fussed and she worried. She spent some time on the phone with her sister, who had lived in Alaska for 15 years, and she worked to calm Grandma and reassure her that everything would be alright. At the appointed time, my uncle emerged from the wilderness safe and happy. He had had the trip of his life and all Grandma's worrying was for naught.

After the whole ordeal was over Grandma wrote us to say that she learned "to feel the peace the Savior can send you when you are worried." But perhaps the greatest revelation of all is in her next sentence. "Each day as I prayed I did feel comfort and peace, but you know how Satan can put thoughts into your mind to make you worry."

Grandma hit the nail on the head. It is Satan who makes us worry and the Spirit who makes us feel peace. If Satan can but sidetrack us with worry so that we can not function--read our scriptures, do our callings, be a happy and pleasant member of the family--then he's winning. And we can not feel the whispering of the Spirit when our heart is gripped with fear.

10 Things I've Learned from FB

1. If you don't know what FB is then you are probably over 50, or very, very out of it.

2. Some of my "friends" are very funny.

3. Some of my "friends" can't string together an intelligible update to save their lives. They write things like, "Whoa. Yoko Ono is had hot babe 10 years yesterday." That leave you saying, "What does that EVEN MEAN!!!"

4. There are some people who don't go on Facebook very much.

5. When those people go on FB, say every 6 months, they are only on there to say appalling things like, "My wife (husband) is smokin' hot." And their spouse responds in kind with things like, "Oooo, you are THE hotty pants." And it leaves us knowing that they just had a whale of a night and we would rather not have known that. (If you EVER see a post like this from my hubby, it's cuz he's messing with me. He's knows how strongly I feel about that.)

6. There are FB people who are, always, 100% of the time positive. Their updates are filled with uplifting quotes and constant statements of how rosy life is. I have an unexplained desire to hit these people.

7. There are people who profess constant and undying love for spouse and children on FB. I'm with Elder Bednar on this one, there is a better way to show your family you love them. Like buying a journal.

8. People talk a lot about food, sleep deprivation and lack of motivation. I suppose this is what binds us together, but honestly can we be even a little original? (Naturally, I'm guilty of all of these things, so here's to conceding that I lack originality, too.)

9. On FB you learn quickly who can spell and who can't. Sadly, I've been found with some frequency in the latter camp.

10. FB is an incredibly fun way to settle arguments with the Mr. What, you don't think women would enjoy their job as a homemaker better if they got paid for it? Well, I have 13 friends that say you're wrong. Ha. Take that.

Presents

Wendell's birthday is coming up. This is a high stress time for me since he buys himself whatever he wants. He goes on particular purchasing sprees in the 3 weeks before Father's Day, his birthday and constantly through the entire month of December.

This insures that whatever I buy him, he will buy for himself just days before I give him the gift, usually leaving me scrambling to return what I bought him and get him something else, which is inevitably crappier than what he just bought himself.

So I've learned to be more upfront with him. And he with me. So the other day he calls me while I'm at Wal-mart shopping for Beck's birthday. He asks me if I can buy something for him, while I'm there. I say sure, but since it's a special-ish item, I'm going to save it for his birthday, only six days away.

Fine he says. I purchase and hide the gift. Guess what I found today. I'm not even kidding. He couldn't wait six days. Sheesh.

If I had...

Sometimes I have a dream about the money truck coming and dumping money at my house and suddenly, I could have or do whatever I want with what the money can buy. I'm not saying that it's not a shallow dream, cuz it is, but it is still fun to dream.

So if I had a sudden influx in money I would...

Remodel the kitchen

Put recessed lighting in the living room

Hire a professional organizer

Hire a regular house keeper

Throw parties on a regular basis

Buy my parents a $675 painting that I'm sure they'd love

Go to Disneyland

Buy a new minivan with automatic sliding doors

So what would you do with a sudden influx of money...don't say "pay tithing" that's a given?

Christmas Cards

Dear Friends,

I will not be sending out a Christmas letter this year. This is not so unusual since I didn't send Christmas letters last year or the year before...or the year before that. It's not because I didn't write them, I did. I wrote you all letters. I got family pictures and I even gathered your addresses. I just never mailed the letters. For three years.

I've got the family pictures again and I'll gather up addresses. Some of you have given up on me and have stopped sending me Christmas cards and letters. I'm really sorry that I've been so flaky. However, I have decided that since I keep this blog and I'm now on Facebook, that I no longer need Christmas letters.

I mean, if you follow the blog, you've heard about Wendell's promotion, funny things the kids have said and my work to become a motivational speaker. Do you really want to hear about it again? I didn't think so.

And if you're my Facebook friend, then you hear everything from what I'm making for dinner to how creepy I find men in dress slacks and naked ankles. (Shudder.) So, really, you're up to date.

The only thing I don't do well is post pictures. So I'll send you pictures that say "Happy Holidays" on them and have a picture of our family. Maybe I'll even include my blog address, if you'd like to hear me rant. But probably not since that will take too much effort.

If you want a pic, feel free to email me your address (jennakwood@gmail.com).

Sincerely,

Your Lame Friend