Much Ado Abouut Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is one of my favorite plays, it's very witty and quite funny. I also love it for the movie that Kenneth Branagh made of the play. Reading a play is enjoyable but they're meant to be seen and heard and Branagh does Shakespeare wonderfully. Some of the things I love the most about this play are the witty bantering between Beatrice and Benedick and the comedic blunderings of humble constables Dogberry and Verges. I highly recomend this play.

General Relief Society Meeting

Saturday evening was the Genearal Relief Society Meeting. We got to watch it with grandma and the aunts. If you didn't get a chance to watch the broadcast you can watch it here, there are four languages availible: English, Spanish, Portugese, and ASL. Anyway, here are the notes I took.
-caring for individuals
-relief society is organized after the priesthood
-we need to use our time in inspired way (note: this is straight from what I wrote, it's not edited.)
-get rid of the non essentials
-remember whos we are and what we are to do
-charitable and practical!!!
-visiting teaching is terribly important!
-focus on people rather than percentages
-"never suppress a generous thought."
-righteousness and articulateness
-more concerned with being righteous than being selfish
-mind the gaps
-accomplishments etc.
-there is nothing that can separate you from the love of Christ
-recognize the Lord's approval
-it's not what you can get out, but what you can give
-be a holy woman
-be valiant
-endure to the end
-there is a great legacy
-charity never faileth
-one heart, one mind and one intention: Zion!
-D&C 88
-there is a time and a season for everything
-visiting teaching is a call from the Lord
-the legacy is passed from heart to heart
-we must cherish and watch over one another

going back to emergency preparedness, this blog might be helpful in working to get out of debt etc.

Peaches

"Beautiful peaches, peaches for me." It's peach season, we have some ripe peaches that we've been working on using them. Last night we made peach cobler and I peeled the peaches, peeling a ripe peach is a beautiful thing because they can just be tugged right out of their peels. Peaches are weird, they're fuzzy, it's an odd feeling, touching a peach. Today my mom made peach pie and it smelled so good that I asked to have some as soon as it came out of the oven, it was sooo good. So enjoy peach season, I kow I am.

Dance Dance

I am really wanting to dance, not just by myself but to go to a dance with my friends and just dance like crazy! I watched Footloose today and now I "wanna cut loose, footloose..." I love dancing, from runing like a little crazy child around the living room to the music, to ballet lessons, to square dancing in 3rd grade, to social dancing in 6th grade, to dance in high school... I love dancing. I am not a great dancer but it's so much fun to just dance. One of my favorite classes my last semester of college was the Polynesian dance class I took, and it was amazing and painful, I had no idea how hard it was to hula, it looked so easy. For the guys out there, you should know that girls adore it when you know how to dance, as much as we may or may not like you, the "slow" dance/ the deacon shuffle gets pretty old after once or twice, girls love a guy who can dance and even better, a guy who can lead! So everybody, go out there and dance it up, in your car, at work, on the dance floor, just dance!

Journal of Discourses

I've decided to try my hand at reading the Journal of Discourses, at least in part. It was suggested to me by one of my teachers that a good way to learn more about the church as an institution and as my religion would be to read through the Journal of Discourses one president of the church at a time. The starting place for this is Brigham Young, the journal didn't start until after the saints moved to Utah and by that time Joseph Smith was dead. I started this task earlier in the summer, but got put off it for a while and so before I'd gotten very far the idea came to me that I should be taking notes as I did this so that I could go back and have something to refrence afterwards.
I decided to post my notes from my first attempt, I found I got a lot more out of it than I had the last time I read this particular discourse. I found some really cool stuff and I wanted to share it.
Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, Brigham Young
Salvation pg 1-6 delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, January 16, 1853
-just about everyone in their own way is seeking what they believe to be salvation
"The object of a true salvation correctly and minutely understood, changes the course of mankind." pg 2
"How difficult it is to teach the natural man, who comprehends nothing more than that which he sees with the natural eye! How hard it is for him to believe!" pg 2
"If the Lord does not speak from heaven, and touch the eyes of their understanding by His Spirit, who can instruct or guide them to good? who can give them the words of eternal life? It is not in the power of man to do it; but when the Lord gives us His Spirit to a person... they can hear, believe, and be instructed." pg 2-3
Whenever we are disposed to give ourselves perfectly to righteousness, to yield all the powers and faculties of the soul (which is the spirit and the body, and it is there where righteousness dwells); when we are swallowed up in the will of Him who has called us; when we enjoy the peace and the smiles of our Father in Heaven, the things of His Spirit, and all the blessings we are capacitated to receive and improve upon, then are we in Zion, that is Zion." pg 3
"We are the temples of God," pg 3
-we have the opportunity to be Zion, to be temples of the Lord if we could truly love and follow what is set before us, what's holding us back We should be jumping at the opportunity.
"If Elders [or sisters] of Israel use language which is not proper for the lips of a Saint, such Elders [or sisters] are under condemnation, and the wrath of God abides upon them," pg 4
"...but if every heart were set upon doing right, we should have Zion here." pg 4
"...it proves that we can add to our knowledge, wisdom, and strength, and that we can add power to every attribute that God has given us." pg 5
"Let us fill up our days with usefulness, do good to each other and cease from all evil." pg 5
"I wish to impress upon your minds the reality that when the body which is organized for intelligence to dwell in, dies, and returns to it's mother earth, all the feelings, sensibilities, faculties, and powers of the spirit are still alive, they never die, but in the absence of the body are more acute. They are organized for an eternal existence." pg 5
"...we acknowldege the hand of God in all things, all is right, Zion is here, in our own possession." pg 5
-remember to have compassion on others
"I find that I have enough to do to watch myself. It is as much as I can do to get right, deal right and act right." pg 6
"Light cleaves to light, and truth to truth." pg 6
I hope if you enjoy this that you'll try it for yourself, these are the things that really seemed important to me, if you were to read it I'm sure that there would be other things that would jump out at you.

Sou da Bahia

So my cousin and some of his friends made this documentary about art in Brazil and last night we had the opportunity to go and see it. It was really cool to be able to see it, he's been telling us about it for so long, last summer they went to Brazil and filmed. We also got to see an art exhibit that went along with it. You should go here to their blog and check it out.
p.s. this is totally unrelated but if you ever want marzipan, you should not go to See's Candy to get it, they are famous for many things but their marzipan is not one of them and there's a good reason why.

non lo so

Tua Sorella! Non mi piace, perche? Non lo so perche, ma non mi piace, e quanto poplo sono stupido e io anche, perche? ripateto: non lo so, ma mi piace Italiano, e la lingua bella. Anche mi piace mio parlo tua sorella, ecco!

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I first heard about Mrs. Gaskell when I stumbled across part of a mini serise based on her book Wives and Daughters. After seeing some of the serise I wanted to find out what happened so I read the book. I loved the book and the serise when I got to see all of it. Last spring I was introduced to North and South via the mini serise made of it, I loved it so much that I think I watched it twice in about two days and it's a four hour serise. Anyway I wanted to read the book and see how it matched up with the serise, so after waiting for it on hold all summer I finally got to read it (who would have thought you'd have to wait longer for a book than a movie?). I liked the book, on the whole I think I still prefer the movie better, and I think it was probably easier reading the book having seen the movie and being better able to picture things. I love what a fiercly independent girl Margret is and how she's her own woman, and yet good and kind. I think the movie did a good job of adapting the issues of the book into terms that are more readily accesable to audiences today. It was also a bit harder to read about all the tragedies that occour to Margret and her family, somehow it's sad when it's seen but it takes soo much more to be able to tell how sad things were. I'm glad I read the book, I think I like both the movie and the book to the same degrees that I like the movie and book of Wives and Daughters.

I love getting to do what I do. I love getting to paint at my pleasure. I love that I no longer am hampered by classes and homework and part time job that steal my time, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I went to school and all that but I did it wrong, art was usually where I could fit it in and my other homework got precedence because those teachers were more demanding, and then I realized how stupid it was. I love that I can work on and explore ideas and interests that I have, creating series' and learning how and what I want. I have loved the freedom to learn my interests and now at my own pace and enthusiasm. I love that I'm sending my work out and joining the art world and I loved it even more when I was accepted into the show I submitted to.
It makes me sad though that my caring and well meaning friends and family are always suggesting jobs I could try, "real jobs". It makes me sad that more people don't study art because they don't believe they can support themselves or a family doing it.

Finances

Emergency preparedness again, this time Finances. This one is very important, especially right now, there are a lot of people who are having a lot of trouble because they had debt before the economy started going down. It is terribly important, esepecially right now, to avoid debt or to work on getting out of it. In unstable financial times a lot of us may need to rethink our finances and spending habits. If you fall into this category or have debt you can go here for suggestions or help.
It's also very important to have a reserve of money built up for unforeseen circumstances, such as job loss, medical emergency, etc.

Be Prepared...

Mostly because I thought of the title and the picture to go with it. However we do need to be getting along with our tour of emergency preparedness so I suppose we'll take a look at planning. As was brought up in stake conference today, or maybe it was last night, in an emergency you either can or you can't, you either know CPR or you don't etc. So planning, you need to know what you and your family are going to do in an emergency. Elder Packer spoke last night about being in Spain as a mission president when 9/11 happened It was interesting to hear a rememberance of that day from outside the states, and how other people were impacted. Elder Packer said that they were at a zone conference when they found out about the events taking palce in New York and they were able to get the missionairies all together and tell them what had happened and how to act. He said that one missionairy asked if he'd spoken to the prophet to find out what they should be doing, Elder Packer told him that he had not, but that as part of his training as a mission president he had been told what to do in an emergency situation. Elder Packer went on to say that even if he had tried to call the prophet to find what he should do, he wouldn't have been able to get through with everyone trying to call and make sure people they knew were all right. It could have been very bad to have a group of missionaires and not to have know what to do with them all in an emergency, but because they had a plan they were all right.
We need to have plans in place and well known, I imagine that most families have a plan for what should happen if there's a fire, things like how to exit and where to meet up and call for help. Planning for a fire is all well and good, but more than that we need to have plans in place to cover every conceivable thing. To make plans consider things like:
Going through your daily routine(s), who is where when? what if someone is not with the rest of the family?
Make meeting spots
Have contact relatives/friends, someone who doesn't live in the same area if something major occurs
What happens if you or your spouse is at work?
Do you have pets? What happens to them?
Does anyone take any medications?
Where are your important papers kept?
Do you know where to go to get help?
Does your community have an emergency plan?
There are resources you can go to such as http://www.ready.gov/, with resources especially for planning. This site has instructions for specific disasters.
Oh, I will just add, that we need to have this information in some form of text copy as the internet will likely not be at our disposal in an emergency. If you're interested in finding more about all of this just start googling these things and you'll have tons of sites at your disposal. I also wanted to add this that I just found, even though I already did food storage.
Remember, we need to prepare now.

Time Warp

We had stake conference today and it was really great, we got to hear from Elder Alan Packer, who is President Packer's son. All the talks were great and the spirit was very strong. It's really great the things that can happen when the spirit is present, if a speaker has the spirit with them and if you're working to have the spirit with you as well, then you will hear what you need to hear, even if it's not actually what the speaker is saying. It's so wonderful to be able to have personal inspiration and revelation.
I was in the choir and so I was sitting up on the stand and it was fun and interesting to look out and see people in the stake. I saw a kid I'd been on youth council with four years before and it was crazy to see how grown up he'd gotten. There are all these boys that I haven't seen or thought about in years who are now going on or just getting back from missions; one of my friends just got back last night, I hadn't thought much about him for a while but it was so exciting to unexpectedly see him again. It was especially cool to see another boy who'd been on youth council, he just got back from his mission to Germany, he's such a cool kid, he was born with a disability so that it's hard for him to walk, his twin is completely normal but despite his disabilities, he's always happy and positive and smiling. It's strange to see how people change while you're gone, how grown up they get.

72-hour kits

Quite frankly I've run out of enthusiasm for this but I did promise to do it so here is yet another instalment on emergency preparedness. If you're not sure where to start with the whole preparedness thing then 72-Hour Kits are a good place to start, it's about the most basic level of preparedness. A 72-hour kit would be helpful in an earth quake, tornado/hurricane, car accident, getting lost, etc. You should have a kit for each person that's in your home and you should keep at least one in your car. You can buy ready made kits or you can make your own. If you want to make your own or if you're just curious to learn more about 72-hour kits try here or here.
Another tip in general is to always keep your gas tank half full, that way if something happens and you're far away from home, you're won't get stuck with the gas light on.

Classical

I have found something interesting about classical music, when it's on all the time my desire to hear other forms of music fades away. I don't seek classical music out generally but when it's on I quite enjoy it. Over the summer I've renewed my love of our local classical radio station for many reasons, mostly ones that I hadn't noticed. While I don't generally seek classical music out, it is usually very beautiful and plesant to listen to. Another reason I enjoy this station is that the radio shows are interesting, informative, there's no ranting or raving about politics etc. I love that; I also love that they don't obscess about movies, tv shows or American Idol- which technically falls into the tv heading- they talk about news in the world, things of research or study, books even. I like that they relay the BBC, somehow I'm more willing to listen to the news if it's via the BBC, I think I trust them more and they cover a broader scope. One thing I really enjoy on this station is that they have a program where they discuss scholarly topics, things like the writings of German women in the 1800s, or the inspiration behind a play that's currently running, an art exhibit; call me boring, old fashioned or crazy but it doesn't really matter to me who's doing what on which reality tv show (although I do like So You Think You Can Dance), I like hearing a program that might open up a new area of interest or study, where I might learn something new and useful.
So here's to classical music!

Emergency Preparedness - First Aid

Back to Emergency Preparedness, in the lesson I heard on Sunday first aid was mentioned as a part of emergency preparedness and that was something that I hadn't considered before but a very good point. In a mass emergency there will be people injured, you may even be injured yourself and knowledge of first aid will come in very handy.
I don't know about you but I've had a lot of first aid training over the years, in every swimming class I ever took, in health classes in school, and every year when we had girls camp. If you're like me you also don't necessarily remember all of that good training so here are some things to refresh us all.
First off, there is training available through the American Red Cross; they offer training in first aid, CPR, AED(Automated External Defibrillator), disaster education, things to know for babysitting, life guarding, etc. Also a note: even if you've been certified for something like CPR in the past you may need to certify again, I believe that you need to recertify every two years.
The Mayo Clinic has a website with instructions on the first aid for many injuries/ailments, including shock. If you only learn first aid for a few things make sure you learn about shock, if a person is injured or sick there is also always the danger of them going into shock.
Some other standard first aid that you should know is how to care for: broken bones, severe bleading, how to make a splint/sling/bandage, heat stroke etc., hypothermia, and choking.
Besides knowing first aid it would be a good idea to have some kind of first aid guide to look to, I found several options on amazon, and I'm sure they could be easily found else where. Another very important thing to have is a first aid kit, I would keep a stocked first aid kit in your home, in your car(s) and even have small kits to carry around in a purse etc. You can find any number of resources for first aid kits. The Red Cross recommends that you include these items in your first aid kits:

• 2 absorbent compress dressings (5 x 9 inches)
• 25 adhesive bandages (assorted sizes)
• 1 adhesive cloth tape (10 yards x 1 inch)
• 5 antibiotic ointment packets (approximately 1 gram)
• 5 antiseptic wipe packets
• 2 packets of aspirin (81 mg each)
• 1 blanket (space blanket)
• 1 breathing barrier (with one-way valve)
• 1 instant cold compress
• 2 pair of nonlatex gloves (size: large)
• 2 hydrocortisone ointment packets (approximately 1 gram each)
• Scissors
• 1 roller bandage (3 inches wide)
• 1 roller bandage (4 inches wide)
• 5 sterile gauze pads (3 x 3 inches)
• 5 sterile gauze pads (4 x 4 inches)
• Oral thermometer (non-mercury/nonglass)
• 2 triangular bandages
• Tweezers
• First aid instruction booklet

I hope that these links and information help and that you look into them deeper on your own.
Also an addition about food storage or family home storage as it seems to be called now, I didn't notice this link at providentliving.org; there's more information there including a pamphlet available in several different languages.

Labor Day Tradition

I'll just start by saying to make things perfectly clear that this is not a post about emergency preparedness, I do more of that later(yes, I really will get to it). Today is Labor Day, a holiday which most people don't know the reason for, I'm going to see if I can remember the reason, I learned it in AP American History which was some time ago. As I recall Labor Day stems back to the days when people worked in factories, you know, back when little kids got terrible lungs from being in hot, dirty, factories for hours and hours on end; I'm sure you've read a book or seen a movie about it. While conditions in factories were terrible for children they were just as terrible for adults; in the factories people generally worked every day of the week and for hours and hours on end for terrible pay. Because of all of these conditions people began going on strikes, and if I remember correctly there were mass strikes that led to labor day...I can't remember why we got the holiday out of it but there you go.
Anyway, getting back to today, it's a tradition in my mom's family to gather at my Grandma's over night the night before and then go and have breakfast at a park. In the early days it was always at Salem Pond(nothing to do with the witch trials), but we haven't gone there for the last several years. Today though we made it back to Salem Pond, I think because my future cousin-in-law was there and the tradition was explained to him and Salem Pond was remembered.
I don't know that Salem Pond was all that exciting of a place but it was a lot cooler in my memory, I remember there were these huge tires that were half buried in the ground that you could climb on, naturally those haven't survived time and the need to have safer play grounds. There was a stream running through it which I remembered once I saw it, my cousins and I used to have little boats that we floated in it but the stream was kinda yucky now. One thing we did do though was feed the ducks.

Emergency Preparedness

We had a lesson on emergency preparedness today, that's nothing new, they happen every so often, usually I hear them and know there's a lot to what they say and usually I forget about it before I do anything about it. I would like that to be different this time, maybe this will help me keep with it.
If you're LDS, then the idea of emergency preparedness is nothing new and you've probably heard about it your whole life, food storage is probably what comes to your mind when the word is mentioned. For anyone who isn't LDS, we focus a great deal on emergency preparedness, when emergencies come it's too late to be wondering if you've got the supplies to see it through and so our leaders encourage us to prepare now. You might be wondering what kind of emergencies we might be expecting, we try to be prepared for anything that might come our way, be it flood, earthquake, fire, snowstorm, power outage, unemployment, etc.
As I said food storage is probably the most well known aspect of emergency preparedness but it is by no means the only aspect of it. The Church has put together a website called Provident Living, and their section on emergency preparedness coveres home storage, finaces, community planning, communication and lists resources.
I don't think that I can cover all of emergency preparedness today but maybe since I believe that September is emergency preparedness month (and if it wasn't, it is now) I can keep going through out the month, posting more about this and hopefuly learning more myself.
I guess I can start with food storage, because it's the most well known it's also the one I think I know the most about. To start with, the 'why?' We store food because in an emergency it's not likely that you'll be able to make it to the store and even if you can you probably won't be able to keep going to the store or the stores may run out of things. We are encouraged to start with something like a 72 hour kit and work our way up to a year or more supply of food. Food storage food tends to be things like canned goods, and dried or powdered items. Another item would be to store wheat that can be ground with a wheat grinder. Food storage should be something that can last but it should also be something that you'll eat on a regular basis so that you can cycle through your food storage and it doesn't get bad and go to waste.
Food storage can be a daunting task and something that seems like it would be more fitting to do at some later phase in life but I'm here to tell you that any time, now in fact, is the right time to start. I know that if you're a newley wed or living in a small apartment, it can be especially daunting due to lack of space or money but it is possible and worth it. This article in this month's Ensign Magazine offers a starting place for those in small apartments etc. and ideas on how it can be done. Now on the why you should, it's very important to have food on hand, not just for a disaster type emergency, but for financial emergencies as well. As a college student I was generally straining my budget to be able to pay for the next semester's tuition and all the other things in life. I set myself trips to the grocery store every two weeks and a certian budget for those trips. There were weeks when I was digging through my cubard for a can of this or a package of that, that I might have gotten a month or so earlier to be able to make it through until my next trip to the store. It may sound silly but an extra can or two at each trip to the store can really make a big difference.
Look for future posts on 72 hour kits, First Aid, Financial Preparedness, Communication, Emergency Planning and possibly much, much more.

Shakespeare Anyone?

I've been wanting to improve myself by reading more Shakespeare, perhaps even his complete works (how cool would it be to be able to say you've read them all?). I figured that it might be more fun to invite anyone interested to join me in my reading and start a reading group. My idea is to have people read the plays together (e.g. at the same time, not nescisarrily the same place) and be able to discuss them, watch movies of the plays (because a play is always better once you've seen it) or where posssible the actual plays themselves. I guess the idea came to me because I really loved the Shakespeare class I took and I miss it. If desired perhaps members of said group could even get together to act out scenes of the plays that are read.
So if you're interested in this at all, let me know. If you have a play that you'd like the group to read, then let it be known and if you have any other comments, let's hear them.
If it becomes feasible to do so, I might make a blog for the group so that everyone had a place to participate.
So if you love Shakespeare, or want to try to, join on up.

Story Time

Today, a last outing before my sister goes back to school, we went with my grandma to the story telling festivle. I'd never been before and it was quite fun. Story time hasn't been on the menu for some time now and it was nice to get to be told stories again. We heard a hillarious cowboy version of Cinderella, comeplete with a "dairy-god-cow." The next story teller was more of a folksey, musical type with harmonica, jews harp and washboard...apparently a lingerie board is the way to go. I was reminded that too folksy is not really my favorite, although it was quite impressive to see someone who could bark while playing the harmonica. The next teller told us African fables, she called them "por qua" (why) stories. It's wonderful the way people can use their voices, inflection and faces to tell a really good story, or not use them to tell a not so great story. Next was a wonderful musician who told us about an instrument called the hammer dulcimer, which in combination with the harpsicord lead to the modern day piano. We heard about the life of a story teller's beloved uncle and the honky tonk he created, a reminder that life can be totally different in foreign parts of the country, or the world. Our favorite story of the day was a "love story," about how a little girl who didn't read came to love reading with the help of her local head librarian. I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes.
The art of story telling is a wonderful art and talent in whatever form it may be possessed, whether it be spoken, writen, acted or filmed.

tea time

Along with yesterday's IKEA adventure, we also had afternoon "tea" at Elizabeth's Tea Shop(note the above picture is not Elizabeth's). It's a proper British place, with authentic food; I'm not sure if it's named for the Queen or just some Elizabeth. It's a charming little place and we got scones (or skons, as it was Britishly pronounced) with clotted cream and strawberry preserves and Cadbury hot chocolate. It was all quite good. Now if you're like me, many things British may be a mystery to you so here's a guide to British food(the little I know)
Scone: Unlike what I grew up believing was a scone (fried bread), an English scone is pretty much a biscuit(not to be confused with a British biscuit), there were different flavors, we got plain and cheese.
Biscuit: Since I brought it up a biscuit in England is a cookie.
Clotted Cream: This has been a mystery to me for ages, I simply couldn't imagine what it might be. It turns out that it's basically butter without much flavor (e.g. salt).
A Sweet/Sweety: candy, usually of the hard variety
Baked Beans: Something to be eaten on toast. I'd heard of beans on toast but I hadn't realized until I looked at the menu, how popular they were.
Crumpets: I didn't actually try them but they were round with holes in them and they might have been boiled or fired, I really don't know though.
Crisps: Chips, they have some very odd flavors over the pond, I think the weirdest was Prawn Cocktail.

The Happiest Place on Earth...

...nope, not Disneyland, but IKEA. Today my mom, sister and I had lunch at the IKEA Resturant/Cafe. I had no idea what to expect, I'd never been to an IKEA before at all, I thought maybe something along the lines of a McDonald's at Wal-Mart, I was plesantly surprised. I was really impressed by what I saw, the food was delicious, inexpensive, fairly heathy, and most of all there was recycling and gasp! smart business sense (they ask people to clear/clean their own places so that they need fewer workers and can have less expensive food).
I was also very amused by the store itself, it's almost like a theme park, like going to Disneyland. "Little Suzy, you've just won the big grand prize, what are you going to do?" "I'm going to go to IKEA!" It's set up to be the ultimate all day thing, you go there, the Restaurant/Cafe serves breakfast and I think it opens before the store does, so you get your breakfast there. There's a play place to check your kiddies, you wander around and find your dream furniture, you have your lunch in the Restaurant/Cafe, you shop some more, you find your items, packed and ready to go, you pick up the kiddies, maybe have dinner, or maybe just pick some up in the Swedish Import area so you can make your own Swedish meatballs. After all the fun is had, you pack up and go home.
We didn't actually look at the furniture today but I think it would be fun to do some time, even though it will be a long time before I have the money to shop at IKEA. I think though that some way of marking your trail could be required to make your way back out again...perhaps breadcrumbs.