Mormonism Tucked in Fiction

I'm currently wending my way through the novels of Reginald Hill with Andrew Danziel, Peter pascoe and Ellie Soper Pascoe. I love reading the adventures of the 'Fat Man' and the family of Pascoes that he interacts with. While reading through the series I noticed that he commented on Mormon culture a few times. I thought the quotes were interesting and they caused me to pause in reading. My relationship with Mormonism is complicated, but it is a part of me that I own and follow. So I am always surprised to 'meet' it in un-religious and popular texts. Here are my favorite quotes from his novels.

It was like the pope admitting some uncertainty about the position of the Mormons- Reginald Hill (Ruling Passion)

They also might have been gang leaders, astronauts, presidential aides or Mormon PR men, but they were unmistakably American. - Reginald Hill (April Shroud)

Here is one from another author I enjoy- Martha Grimes

Alert, Bass sat up. “Conditions?” Good Lord, conditions as in the inheritance is null and void if you divorce Helen, or become a Mormon, or sell this cottage, or refuse to keep Bolly on as a house boy? The list could go on and on.”- (The Way of All Fish)

NOw that I have completed the works of these authors (for the third or forth time) I am moving on to the non fiction works of Elaine Pagels. Her religious books are great and I'm ready to read some more serious stuff. I always turn to non- fiction in the spring as my thoughts move to more contemplation and my body yearns for warmth and time outside. The time change is this Sunday and the solstice happens soon after that on the 20th... so spring is coming at last. I can't wait!

Gratitude - 12/15/2018

It's been a busy couple of months. I've spent quite a bit of time with family, getting things started for surgery, working with my advocate for a meeting in March and looking for work. While I have been too busy to blog much, I wanted to sit down and share my gratitude for some blessings today.

1. I was able to sit down and pay bills. Very grateful that I had the resources to pay them.

2. Bug stayed over last night. I woke up early listening to him recite and feeling my body being squished up against Teddy and it was sweet. I am tired, but happy to have the time with Bug. Teddy is such a warm dog that he helps keep me warm too.

3. I have a great quilt. It is thick and warm and with a duvet cover it looks amazing. I love snuggling under the covers when it is cold because I feel warm and toasty.

4. I am grateful for my treadmill. I am able to walk at my own pace when I can and get some exercise in even when it is cold outside. Some days my knees and ankles won't take it, but on others I can just walk at my leisure while watching a TV program.

5. I am thankful for a freezer full of food. Can't be thankful enough that I have good food to eat. Not everyone does and I am thankful.

6. I love coloring books. I enjoy listening to books and coloring. I don't do it very often, but when I need to rest and can't be on my feet I enjoy it more than I would just watching television.

7. I love the Christmas tree. Bug decorated it himself this year and it is just gorgeous. I like taking a few minutes to just sit and look at it. It's a bit restful and wonderful to just enjoy and think.

8. I enjoyed reading on sharks over the last few days. They are one of my favorite species and I have had fun this evening studying and writing about them.

What are you thankful for today?

Forced Rest

I'm a bit tired and wrung out today... a bone deep exhaustion that I am struggling to deal with. I need to rest this weekend so that I have the strength to work all next week and even the thought of moving my body right now seems so painful that I have been sitting and reading or watching films for the majority of the afternoon... except when I have napped. I worry that I am letting my friends and my co-workers down with my inability to continue to push myself in ways that I could in the past, but am unable to do now for long periods of time. I feel like I'm letting myself down too. This problem is something that I think I am going to learn to accept

it and stop being so hard on myself for it. I am trying to look at the positive side of the health problem; I have been able to take the time to read and watch some movies which I rarely have taken time to do in years. Some of the films that I have watched recently I have held onto for years to watch when I had the time. I am slowly winnowing through those piles of films including the massive collection that my Uncle Rick gave me years ago in a large stack. Because of that gift, I am enjoying films that I would never have gone out of my way to see if he hadn't given them to me. (Don't get me wrong- there are some serious duds in the collection, but I have found a few gems. And this package used to be full to the top... it was an amazing gift.)

So today and tomorrow I will rest and see what energy I can pull up out of the recesses of my muscles for the week and what will be will be. I am grateful for the day of rest that I have and a day to spend with family.

Too Much Dreaming

Some days are just really really tough. Even when things go right if you sleep really really poorly then nothing really works out very well. Last night I had horrible dreams. Sometimes I'm able to forget that I have PTSD and then I'll go to sleep and I wake up a few hours shaking and sweating and unable to actually recognize that I'm in my own bed and everything is safe. It's a really, really weird thing. I have dreams of policemen coming into my bedroom when I'm sleeping and dreams of my mother sitting on me and folding me into the living room floor in front of friends. I have so many dreams of different things that have happened that really seem to stick and even when I think I forgotten them they seem to come to back to life at night. I keep trying different medications to forget that they are there and yet they still just seem to come. Sometimes I'll go a whole week without one and I can actually forget for a moment that I have them and then I go to sleep and they're back.

All you can do is force yourself to wake up and take the several seconds needed to realize where I am and then try to calm down and remember that everything is okay now even if it wasn't okay then. I've had family members say that I shouldn't talk about this becasue what happened in the past is a personal family matter and you don't share these things with other people even if it is on an anonymous blog where most readers do not know who you are. However, I've never found that anything is successfully solved without talking about it and acknowledging the problem. That's one of the things that I watch people do at church in the past where it's just easier to tell people that have problems to ignore them or pray them away instead of listening to what their actual problems are and trying to help them solve them. Sometimes whatever is easier is not what's right and sometimes the only way to deal with something... no matter how messy and awful and painful it is... is to really talk about it, chew on it, take the time to really remember it for what it is and then try to put it behind you. The more you push something down and try to pretend its not there the more it grows and festers and poisons your soul.

I would truly love to forget so much of what is in my head and I am sort of bothered that I seem to forget so many things that are useful and I can't seem to forget the past. My doctor told me once that PTSD is not a person who is unable to forget the past... It is really that the past along with the experience and emotions of that past will not let go of the person in the present. I will admit that no matter how hard I try to forget things some of them just will not go away ... and they may not show up in my everyday mornings, but they will show up in the night when it's dark and quiet and I feel peaceful and relaxed... and then I'm blindsided by them. I sometimes wish they would go away and sometimes I'm scared of what will happen when they do because I wonder what else worse will come out of my mind.

I wonder sometimes if it is easier to have the same few dreams over and over because at least when I wake up I'm now in the habit of trying to shake them off and trying to calm down. It's sometimes throws me for a loop when I see and hear something old but feels 'new' and I wake up and I can't forget and it seems to take an eternity for me to realize that I am in bed and I am okay. I guess that's one reason that I love cats. If you wake up and you're scared and you're shaking, there's always somebody who's going to come over and ask to be petted and will rub against you to let you know that they are there. I feel quite comfortable embracing my 'old cat lady' persona because they do give me so much joy.

I was reading a book yesterday and one of the characters told Hamish Macbeth that he clearly didn't want to find love. Elspeth felt that what he really wanted was only companionship and if he only wanted to be alone and stuck with a dog and cat for his whole life then that was his choice. At that point, Hamish was really offended and stomped off in a huff... As I read that paragraph, I will admit that I am okay with that for the rest of my life. I think I am more than happy to take companionship over any kind of expressive love with someone else just to have my own place... to be able to feel peace and to have a place of my own that is quiet and safe. I know some would see that relationships of companionship are lesser, but on nights when I wake up and I'm shaking and I'm cold and I'm scared and I'm sweaty and I have no idea what to do I realized I'm also grateful for being alone because I don't have to share this with anybody else anymore. My ex and my son sleep and they hear nothing because they are no longer here. For that I am sometimes intensely grateful.

Gratitude- 12/4/2017

1. I love having the opportunity to volunteer in my community. I work alongside so many nice women with a multitude of life experiences and I love hearing about their lives and family.

2. I love my Bug. He is a mixture of wonderful and frustrating in a gorgeous teenage package. Watching him eat (and the quantity of it) reminds me of myself decades ago. It makes me smile.

3. I love my Nook. I got it for wicked cheap when I was in Utah visiting my grandfather for the last time and I love haven't a book to read anywhere that I go. It's so convenient to curl up with and gives me more options for reading.... with four huge bookshelves in my house I could use some more 'compact' storage. :)

4. I love having the opportunity to draw and goof off with pastels, pencils and trying to re-create the images that are the brainchild of other artists... so I can read about their motivations and try to learn to recreate their images. A challenging but fun process.

5. I love having my own Minion. His purr and weight are extremely comforting and he is simply a mellow soul and quite gorgeous.

6. I am grateful for my pile of blankets. It is a joy to be able to have enough blankets that if one gets dirty I can change it without having to plan a quick trip to the laundromat.

7. I am grateful for sister-in-laws. Some of the most powerful blessings and relationships in my life have come from these two women. I am more grateful to them for their care and friendship that I can express.

8. I am grateful for post it notes. They are extremely convenient as I wade through piles of paperwork and prepare different tasks simultaneously. They are a bit silly, but make planning ahead easier.

9. I am grateful for canned pears- they are so good and I can eat them all year including December in Maine. Enough said.

10. I am so thankful that Remus got his surgery today. That takes a load off of my mind and will make his life so much easier and pain free. Tail today... gone tomorrow.

What are you grateful for today?

Today's Brain Gunk

It's funny how life drags you into the minutia of living and you can allow yourself to be distracted by it all. Classes, health and recent events have left me feeling strained and weak. I feel powerless to change the political direction that my country appears to be firmly headed toward- fascism is an horrific, ugly form of authoritarian nationalism and racial hatred that should appall each of us... yet for many, this form of government seems to be desired. Up here in New England where there is less diversity, there appears to be less conflict. Yet, I still see some of my neighbors who fly a Confederate flag and post images of the flag on their Facebook wall. In a discussion on how to celebrate Black history month next year with a few friends, the issue of possible conflict due to celebrating it was brought up and I am so sad about that. The reasons that I feel sorrow are two-fold. I can't believe I live in a world where celebrating Black history is controversial, but also that I found myself trying to find a way to celebrate such a wonderful part of our American cultural heritage without celebrating it so openly that someone might be offended. I sit here a bit ashamed of myself for my fear and lack of energy to advocate better for friends and people other than myself and my major desire when I pray these days is that I can find the strength to be a better advocate for others, but also to find a way to advocate that I can do over an extended period of time- rather than just a one time protest. I pray for the strength and will to participate in the long fight that is clearly before us.

Today I cleaned, completed homework, and did all sorts of necessary minutia and needful things while going out during the afternoon to try and see the eclipse. I am so far north and out of the path that I really didn't see anything. I could feel the temperature lower and the shadows during the day deepen, but the sun never seemed to change shape. The pictures that people are posting on social media sites are simply phenomenal though. I think there is another eclipse in 2024... maybe I will be better placed then.

The summer semester is drawing to a close and the fall semester is getting ready to commence. As I get ready to close on semester and embark on another, I have many thoughts. One of which is that I need to start writing again because I get so much enjoyment out of it. Currently, I feel like my life can be described in one word- exhaustion. I'd like to keep working to change that. So I think I need to add a little more fun time in my life. I have enjoyed reading, creating art, and other hobbies in the past and I have let most of that fall aside with the daily demands of other priorities. I think its time to create more time to enjoy things within my daily 'to do' list. So watch out - I may start boring the world with more cat pictures. :)

Picture Book Analysis- "When Sheep Cannot Sleep: The Counting Book"

This is a book analysis I completed for a class this semester. This is one of Bug's favorite books so I was pleased to have an excuse to read it some more. I hope you enjoy. :)

In their quest to create and motivate young readers, both authors and publishing houses try to create a work of literature that can stand on its own and that, due to design, storyline and subject matter, can turn more people into readers. Different authors and publishing groups may value different topics and book designs based on past sales or perceived enthusiasm for a topic. This paper attempts to analyze the book “When Sheep Cannot Sleep- The Counting Book” and discuss its distinct place in enjoyable literature for young children.

This beginning reader / picture book was written and illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura who lives in London, England as a Japanese expatriate. He is a prolific author who has won some awards for his varied works. “When Sheep Cannot Sleep” was nominated for a Mockingbird award and was awarded the New York Times Notable Book of the Year award in 1988. The distinctive designs that set the author apart from other illustrators and bold watercolor designs complement the simple storyline of a sheep named Woolly who finds himself unable to fall asleep and goes on an adventure instead. During his adventure he meets other animals and discovers lightning, an empty house, and things to do, draw, chase and eat. Finally he ends up in bed and falling asleep to his quiet thoughts and his images of counting the members of his family in his head.

The straightforwardly moving storyline keeps the book interesting for children ages three to eight years old. However, the author’s secondary purpose is to promote counting for the older preschool reader. They can not only follow the adventures of Woolly, but each page is also set up as a counting game. The reader can enjoy the story of Woolly trying to pick apples, having a conversation with squirrels about the apples, and then using a ladder to reach the apples, while also being able to count upward as the story progresses. His adventure moves from more squirrels than apples, more rungs on the ladder than squirrels and eventually to an empty house with a cozy bed just for him. At the end of the book, the author has made an index that tells the reader what images were meant to be counted in both visuals and words in a clear, easy to read format. By adding a second purpose to the book, the author has created a work that can be used for more than one age group. With bold colors but instructive illustrations that move the story line along, but also ask readers to pause and genuinely look at the pictures, this book invents more opportunities for the reader to interact with the story as they grow. The tension created between the detailed illustrations that ask readers to slow down and ‘look’ and the dialogue which suggests to the reader to speed up was perfect- by the time the reader is developmentally able to notice the tension between words and illustration, he or she is starting to interact by counting and the tension eases.

This book also capitalizes on a few characteristics common to many children’s books. Animals are something that children are highly motivated to learn about, so by creating a main character who is a sheep and several secondary characters that are also animals (squirrels, owls, bats, etc..) there is a strong impetus for the reader to continue on with the story. The illustrations are very colorful which draw the eye towards them and helps to create a sense of peace and lack of urgency in the reader, yet also enthusiasm to continue with the adventure. As a reader, we enjoy following in the path of this poor insomniac sheep because his adventures and environment are simply too interesting- in some ways we as readers no longer have any interest in sleeping either until, with luck, the story promotes in the reader the urge to tuck into bed like Woolly and start to count sheep themselves behind the dark of their own eye lids. The story flows from adventure to peaceful quiet and an urge to join our animal friends in blessed slumber. It also asks the reader to question some of the subtle details in the illustrations: Why are so many animals awake past their bedtime? Why are there so many doors in the house and why are all the doors in the home closed except for one? Why does Woolly feel comfortable entering what appears to be an empty, unknown house that he finds on his adventure and happily cooks some peas and tucks himself into bed? Why are we as readers comfortable with Woolly’s behavior in regards to the house and are not frightened? These questions are only able to be answered by the imagination of the reader.

There are a few themes that are covered in this particular text. The first and most obvious is the pattern of a child having a busy day and then following through the nightly bedtime rituals that put the child in bed and asleep. In some ways, this story reminds us of our lives; we get up, have an adventure, and finish the day in bed ready to begin again on the morrow. Another theme is the pattern of growth- as the story continues, more and more characters or things to count are added to the text, creating depth where there was simplicity. Counting and animals are also themes used in the text. The last theme that comes to mind that is expressed in this book is to simply enjoy the good aspects of life. Giving young children the ability to follow an animal in its evening rituals, to learn more about the world surrounding them, and to create early motivation toward understanding numbers and their uses in our lives is not something to be taken for granted. I highly recommend this particular picture book for any parent with young children for an enjoyable and comfortable read that also encourages fun and learning.



pictures from: http://us.macmillan.com/whensheepcannotsleep/satoshikitamura/9780374483593/, https://cuentoenlasnoches.blogspot.com/2015/03/fernando-furioso-hiawyn-oran-y-satoshi.html, http://us.macmillan.com/whensheepcannotsleep/satoshikitamura/9780374483593/, http://bokmal.com.ua/books/when-sheep-cannot-sleep-kitamura/

Good Thoughts

I've been struggling a bit for the last few days. I have stopped taking some of my abdominal medications and it is pretty amazing to me exactly how much the meds were helping. I had managed to take them for so long that I didn't really remember how much abdominal pain and nausea I tended to live with and now it is back... and wow, I don't like it much. That said I have so much good going on right now so I thought I would count some of my blessings so to speak. :)

1. It's school vacation and I am caught up in all my classes with all of them graded except for one; I got all A's and B's so I can't whine about that. One of the classes was a math class and it is the first time in my life that I have passed an Algebra class! For full disclosure, I had lots of help. I was tutored, used three different texts from outside of class as well as a Teaching Company/ Great Courses class and three smartphone algebra game apps. Not to mention friends and sometimes spending as much as two hours on one question. But I passed- one more math class and my degree will pretty much be mine- all my requirements will be completed. I'm getting there!

2. I am doing pretty well with not biting my nails. I've tried to stop a few times in my life and I am at the crucial point where the nails are long enough they are starting to break. This is where I usually break down and start biting them, but I have been doing well and trying to cut and file them instead.


3. I have a wonderful household of animal companions that keep me company, give me love and affection and even make me laugh. While I probably have too many, like children... I don't know who I would live without if I needed too. So, like family, they stay and I wouldn't have it any other way.

4. I have a fun home and I am warm in this pretty cold and icy weather. I have a few close friends that I adore and who genuinely care for me and while work is a challenge, I have a few co-workers that I really love and can't imagine my life without which is an amazing blessing as well. I have food and water... and even a little ice cream. :D

5. I spend a great deal of my free time with Bug or in service to others which is a gift and helps keep me busy as well.

6. Even though I do have some health complaints, I am doing pretty well. I wish that taking care of myself was easier, but it could be much worse and having a safe place with companions to recover in means the world.

7. I was recently able to visit with some family and that is a gift that I cherish everyday.

8. I live in Maine- it is so beautiful here. I love being rural and being able to have a little space of my own. Being able to not feel super crowded is precious.

9. I love reading and currently have many new books to choose from. I am taking advantage of my vacation to do some fun reading and I have pretty much finished every Nero Wolfe book I got! On to Hamish Macbeth!

10. Who can't smile with silly ferrets around :)

What do you have to be grateful for today?

Starting Again...

It's been awhile since I've been on here. I've been doing a bit of writing on the side, but I will admit that I feel slightly uncomfortable with the idea of putting a lot of personal information on this blog since it has been found by family... so I simply delay and then never put anything up. I want to try and reclaim the blog for myself, but I will admit that I am unclear as to how to do that. So I'll probably be a bit sporadic over the next few months. Starting again was the hardest part... so here I am giving it a try.

To any loyal readers, thank you for being patient. Comments are still more than welcome and will just be slow to post due to moderation. Any specific topics that you wish me to cover can still be requested through comments as well. Thank you for continuing the journey with me. :)

Thoughts on Gcflearnfree....

At the site gcflearnfree.org, I checked out a few tutorials on some things that interested me. This was another site that I hadn't heard of before and after some time on it, I had a little bit of a mixed opinion. Since I struggle hard core with math in my personal life, I thought I would start there. The math portion was divided into sections that covered the basics and a little bit of fourth grade math (fractions), but except for some basics it didn't really do much for me. For instance, it gives practice problems, but doesn’t give a way to check your answers to see if you understood- if they do I couldn't find it. There was a zombie game in that section which I tried and that would allow you to do the math problem and let you know whether you arrived at the right answer or not and it was a little fun, but I thought it might also be stressful because you have to 'rush' the answers or the zombie will 'get you'. That said I realized that I was better at addition in my head than I thought ;)

I glanced through “All the Topics” next and I found that there were a lot of good topics, but not many that interested me right now. I looked at reading because it is one of my favorite things to do and I thought the exercises were great- only thing I would have changed is except for the 'grammar' section, there wasn't much on writing. (I suspect that is because writing is much too complex to put in small bites – at least that's how I see writing.) I also looked at the Microsoft office section because I am currently taking a beginner's computer class and that is something that we are learning about. I found that the topics I already understood well I could understand clearly in the exercises, but I did struggle a little with trying to figure them out if I didn't already have some understanding of the concept discussed.

I think that this might be a site that I would use again, but I didn't feel completed grabbed by the site in such a way that I will be more likely to use it on a regular basis. It was good to learn about and I am interested to see what other people thought of it. I think if I was in a position to be able to use the internet more and to need the information it provided I would be more interested in using it more often. Anyway, it's good to know! :)

What do you think? Have you tried it? On a semi weird note, when I first saw the website title I read it so fast that I thought it was about gluten free stuff and I was really excited... and then confused for the first few seconds of looking at the site... You can't tell what's always in my head, can ya? :D