When you're cute...

...there's no such thing as a bad-hair day.

A walk on the beach

The anticipated ice storm and snow didn't come, so we were able to make it out to the Coast from Portland without any problem last weekend. And then the sun shown all day. And at evening, the cloud bank stayed just enough to the south and east that the sun was able to peak out before setting. And the tide being out made the beach all shimmery with reflections. And this is what happened:

These colors are all as captured by my camera. I made no changes. Credit goes to the Creator.

'Tis the season

....to write so many lists you need a list to keep track of your lists.

....to be thinking of so many disparate things that you forget one very most important thing.

....to stand in line at the post office and the grocery store and the photo lab and tell yourself that this is all part of the season you're happily sharing with those really slow people in front of you.

....to wonder how you were ever busy before, when you didn't have wrapping and shopping and decorating and sending to do -- just cleaning and cooking and picking things up at the store and volunteering and working.

'Tis the season to turn on the holiday music really loud and sing along with whoever's singing and remember that everything you do at Christmastime is going to make someone happy. And that will make you happy too.

Here's a happy picture:



Here's a happy verse I wrote some years ago and attached to a Christmas cookie cutter, to help my friends, similarly yoked, with their holidays:

I can shape the holiday, I've all it takes to start
The decor, lights, the treats and gifts are only just a part

I also have a family whose joy I want to feel
And faith to know the Savior's birth makes celebrating real

The shape of every busy day is largely up to me
I'll start with prayer, set steady goals, remember He taught peace

I know the Savior knows my needs, to follow is my choice
That on this holiday to Him, I can, with all, rejoice.

Love to all!

When they're down

The only way to get noticed is to mess up.

I first noticed this at church with organ music.

Organ music is just there, like light fixtures and carpeting, until something goes wrong. Hit a sour note and everybody looks up to see who's playing. Even if you've played 239,647 notes right, the one's that's wrong gets the attention.

This, I would tell a friend organist commiserating over a goof, is why it's OK to mess up on the organ now and then: To get noticed.

But there's messing up and there's messing up. There's accidentally messing up and there's stupidly messing up and there's intentionally messing up.

And the news has been full of all manner of messing up lately.

Take the local quarterback, whose post-game tirade has sucked all the glory out of hard-won victory. It was stupidly messing up and it's what people are talking about and remembering more than his game-winning touchdown.

Take the party-going interlopers who thought it would be a lark to crash a White House dinner. Their intentional mess-up is probably not bringing in the kind of attention they'd sought.

Take Tiger Woods, who messed up in all three ways, and do with him what you will. I can't look anymore.

The rhetoric is tiring. The ugliness depressing.

It's a kick-em-when-they're-down culture we've become.

If everybody could just all go through life and not mess up....

But since we can't apparently, maybe we should just let people fix their own messes without our nosy interventions and maybe we should just admit that sometimes we mess up too and maybe we should try and remember where possible, those other 239,647 notes.

I hear the White House dinner really was quite nice.

Finding the good

My computer was in the fix-it shop for SIX DAYS last week. Six VERY LONG DAYS.

Things you can't do when your computer is in the fix-it shop:

--Find out who is sending you messages via e-mail and assuming you got them.

--Watch Office episodes you'd missed.

--Confirm that the local theater company mispronounced Jean-Francois Millet 1,000 times during its play.

--Get the agenda of the Kaysville City Council meeting.

--Broadcast your family news to the family newsletter.

--Find out what the stock market is doing at any given second and why.

--Get directions to your next appointment.

--Draft letters and stories for various assignments.

--Download pictures and send them off to interested parties.

--Locate hotels for future travel plans.

--Post new blog entries.

Things you have to do instead:

--Wait in line at the library with mostly pre-teens, for your turn at the computer.

--Get all your Internet business done in 30 minutes due to library rules.

--Listen in on the couple next to you at the computer, who are trying to get a $20 gift card for spending $100 at Walmart by yelling at managers on the phone, while sitting at the library computer.

--Clean your desk at home.

--Clean the drawers in your desk at home.

--Clean your toenails at home.

But, as with every trauma in life, good comes of trial. And this good comes just in time for Thanksgiving. Now, in addition to my usual appreciation for home, family, food, health, church and country, I am thankful for:

--Computers

--Phones of all types

--Cars

--Planes -- so, so grateful!

--Cameras

--Furnaces

--Men who fix computers

It's a great time to be alive!!

Oh, and could I add ... sunsets?!

Out of kontrol

The world would be a simpler place if "cat" started with "k" and "knife" started with an "n" and "face" was spelled "fase." At least in English-speaking countries.

Why do we even have a letter "c" anyway? And why does "s" sound like "sh" in sugar?

I'm not sure how all these variations on exceptions came to be (kame to be), but they never really bothered me until I started teaching English to someone from a totally different culture with totally different language experience. And no writing or reading at all.

How on earth can one teach the differences of the shapes like b and d and p and g, when they're so similar in looks with such a minor variation in sound? Couldn't somebody have come up with symbols that were easier to distinguish?

This falls into the ever-enlarging category of: things I can't change because they're out of my realm of control.

Things like winter coming before you're ready for it.
Or health-care legislation that takes reams of paper to print when all that really needs to be passed is law #1 -- everybody has to have health insurance and law #2 -- nobody can sue doctors for more than $x million.
Or like oil refineries that are eye-sores and safety hazards to your community but that got there before you did so you're stuck with them.
Or like effects of aging that are no fun but better than not aging.

When things are out of your control (kontrol), you just have to go with the flow. That's the lesson that I'm giving my friend from Somalia along with the English lessons. As I try to show how letters become words, like how "b-o-w-l" becomes "bbboooowwwwllll" by sounding it out, and then how "c-u-p" becomes "cup" by sounding it -- oops doesn't work -- I just shrug my shoulders and shake my head and smile and say, "funny English."

That's all you can do sometimes. Shrug your shoulders, shake your head and say, "funny world."

Lights of Massachusetts

Take an ocean and add a lighthouse and you've got something pretty exceptional.

There are many who are inspired by the beacons that have meant safety to seafarers over the years. I count myself among them.

Many thanks to Kraig of http://www.lighthousefriends.com/ for guiding us to these Massachusetts lights:

(The top three are of Eastern Point Light on Cape Ann from different angles. Those below are Cape Ann (Thatcher Island) Lights, then Annisquam and then on Cape Cod: Nauset and Highland. On Nantucket island: Brant Point and finally on Martha's Vineyard: Edgartown Harbor Light, East Chop Lighthouse and Gay Head (Aquinnah) Lighthouse.)

By the numbers:

Massachusetts lights -- 62 (as near as I can tell)

Those we saw -- 20

Those we saw at sunrise -- 3

Those we saw in storms -- 4

Those we went in -- 2

Those we were close enough to touch -- 8

Those we saw from the sea or across a harbor -- 9

Every setting was different, every light was unique. Every one perfect in its own way.