Anybody see coverage of the "Gates" in Central Park the last few weeks? Cristie and I saw a piece about them on a Sunday morning news show. As with most things in New York, they were very controversial; art or ego...and why the Hare Krishna orange? What think ye?

On the way to Sacramento today I read an editorial in Newsweek by Anna Quindlen in support of the overhangs of the walkways in Central Park. Her closing lines: "Our town has been a widow. For a few weeks she took off her weeds and put on a party dress."

Today my mother would be 70 years young! She loved to celebrate her birthday so drink a coke, eat a dessert, clean a bathroom, iron a shirt, or shoot a bird (wink..wink) in her honor....she was quite a gal.

If this has become a site "for healthy living", shouldn't we include posts on exercise, yoga, laughter, immunizations, seat belts, sanitation, good sleep habits and, perish the thought, beneficial medications, or is healthy living just eating raw stuff?

I've given this top ten all time favorite movies some thought. The movies I've listed below are in no particular order. I list them either because I found them most enjoyable, or they were influential in my life at the time, or both.

1. Dances With Wolves

2. Witness

3. Ben Hur

4. The Graduate

5. A Man Called Horse

6. Remains of the Day

7. A River Runs Through It

8. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

9. The Sting (could be bumped if I think more)

10. It's a Wonderful Life

I hesitate to write that I'm grateful for Eli's accident, but the last few days I was afraid this blog had degenerated into a raw food recipe site!

With tonight being a celebration of this year's best films I thought it would be fun if everyone posted their top ten favorties.

Not necessarily in order of significance...

1. Enchanted April

2. Manhatten Murder Mystery

3. The Fugitive

4. Widow's Peak

5. The Best Year's of our Lives (saw it as a child...it still moves me)

6. Charade or North by Northwest or Rear Window...something for sure by Alfred Hitchcock or is it Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart that I'm crazy for?

7. Runaway Jury

8. Peter Pan

9. You've Got Mail

10. A River Runs Through It

I reserve the right to change my mind and edit if you remind me of something I liked better ;-)

DID HE NEED STITCHES! and how did the little twerp do it? Laurel once OD'd on some medicine while I was gone and when I came home she was stumbling around the house....no one seemed to have noticed. Well, I called poison control and justice was served. Jerry was up all night long answering the phone and monitoring Laurel's progress. Oh, I'd say she was about seven years old.

Welcome once again to the world of parenting...it's the best!

CHALLENGE: Who can come up with the grossest sounding "smoothie" using only Superfoods (or whole foods)...Danny started with a pretty good one (though it would make a yummy salad).

Who can think of something completely unappetizing without using salmon as one of the ingredients?

Maybe we could collaberate our efforts, and "one-up" this Dr. Pratt. We'll call it;

"150 Super Food Smoothies: Live Forever and Never Chew Again"


All right folks, it's my bedtime.

GROSS! I will never eat blended salmon. I shudder at the thought.

Did someone say persimmon? I've been trying to sprout some persimmon seeds....I know it's a hopeless cause, but I just love persimmons! (even if they are only in the sidekick category).

Danny- tell me how your spinach, salmon and blueberry shake is. MMmmmm, will you add ice? Yogurt? :)

Before my smoothie maker broke, Sam would have a large smoothie made with berries, oranges, yogurt and usually a banana every morning. It was nice because you can get in 3-4 fruits before the morning is over!)

I occasionally add almonds to my smoothies, I bet walnuts would be great. One of my favorite smoothies (it's like dessert) is a banana, date, nut smoothie with water and ice.. (though dates aren't on the list) I love that nutty flavor. Flaxseed gives a nutty flavor to smoothies as well.

I hear adding spinach or other greens to fruit smoothies is really yummy. Cristie, I'm going to try your apple/green/lemon smoothie!



Thanks for the information Danny, very interesting.

Danny this is not only great food for thought, but wonderful food for the body! I too have been working on a super shake and have found many green blends to be quite delicious. Most recently apple, spinach or kale, slice of lemon with peel, a little water, and lots of ice. Another one has spinach, tomatoes, clove of garlic, celery and a little water. The WoW keeps me from eating that much flesh...and my energy has never been better.

Liz has reduced dairy consumption and has also reduced her need for asthma drugs.

Thanks for some sound advice and information.

Eddie received a "Scripture Scouts" cassette tape from a primary teacher a while ago. He likes to listen to it while driving...

The other day we listened to the tape on the way to school. As soon as Eddie hopped out of the car, I heard a little 3 year old voice say, "Mom, I want NPR." (Only he can't say his R's very well, so it sounded like "N-P-Aeye".

Leave it to Jack to pass up the sing a long tape and listen to the commentary on the President's State of the Union speech instead...

HA! What a crack up!

Last night when I was reading "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis I was struck with an allegory that reminded me of how much I cling to my weaknesses.

There is a man carrying a red lizard on his shoulder and the lizard is always whispering in the man's ear. The man is truly annoyed with the lizard and I would say that 98% of him wants to be rid of it.

In due season the man is approached by an angel who offers to rid him of the lizard. In fact he has the power to kill it, but only with the man's permission. Now the man is reluctant...in a way he clings to the companionship of the lizard even though the little runt only means him harm. The angel tries to persuade the man to let him kill the beast, but the man is frightened..."I'd need to be in good health for the operation. Some other day, perhaps."
"There is no other day. All days are present now."
"Get back! You're burning me. How can I tell you to kill it? You'd kill me if you did."
"It is not so."
"Why, you're hurting me now."
"I never said it would't hurt you. I said it wouldn't kill you. This moment contains all moments."
"Why are you torturing me? You are jerring at me. How can I let you tear me to pieces? If you wanted to help me, why didn't you kill the damned thing without asking me--before I knew? It would be all over by now if you had."
"I cannot kill it against your will. It is imposible. Have I your permission?"

Well at this point the lizard starts to chatter to the man pleading for his life and promising to behave and how unnatural it would be to live without him. Again the angel asks for permission and at last the man relents. He screams in agony as the little reptile is twisted and then flung.

Well, to make a long story a little shorter. The man is physically and spiritually transformed. Not only that, but the creature that tormented him is indeed killed, but then becomes a silvery white stallion. "The new-made man turned and clapped the new horse's neck. It nosed his bright body. Horse and master breathed each into the other's nostrils." The man thanks the angel, mounts the horse and they gallop away towards their divine destiny.

"Do ye understand all this my Son?" said the Teacher.
"I don't know about all, Sir," said I. "Am I right in thinking the Lizard really turned into the Horse?"
"Aye. But it was killed first. Ye'll not forget that part of the story?"
"I'll try not to, Sir. But does it mean that everything--everything--that is in us can go on to the Mountains?"
"Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a Lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with the richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed."

So, am I willing to lose the Lizard?

I want the "richness and energy of desire which will arise" if I will but lose the Lizard.



Seek not for riches but for wisdom; and, behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich. D&C 11

Kirby: Fearfully watching for signs
by Robert Kirby
Salt Lake Tribune columnist

The tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean last week killing an estimated 150,000 people is easily the greatest natural disaster to occur in our lifetimes.
   The event shocked even people who have seen a lot. Surveying the destruction, Secretary of State Colin Powell broke down and wept, saying, ''I've never seen anything like this.''
   Seeing something they've never seen before is giving some people the idea that it's a sign. For them, it can only mean that the Lord has his foot in the door of the long-awaited Second Coming.
   Without discounting the obvious anguish associated with the recent tsunami, let me be analytical enough to point out that this isn't the worst thing that has ever happened to the human race. It's only the worst thing in recent memory.
   Things like this are not necessarily signs that the Lord is coming to get us, but rather proof that life on this planet is a precarious existence.
   If this is a sign of the Second Coming, then it's been flashing for at least 2,000 years. An earlier ''sign'' was the A.D. 542 plague of Constantinople that killed 300,000 people in four months.
   Worse, there was the great earthquake that hit China on Jan. 23, 1556, killing 830,000 people outright and who knows   how many collaterally from disease, injury and starvation.
   That was an accident. In 1642, river dikes were deliberately broken by Chinese rebel forces battling the Ming Dynasty. The subsequent flood drowned 300,000 people in and around the city of Kaifeng.
   The Lord still hadn't shown up by 1727 when an earthquake flattened much of Tabriz, Iran, killing 75,000 people almost overnight. And since counting corpses was even less of an exact science back then than it is now, no one knows how many died in the outlying areas.
   Eight years later, a diphtheria epidemic swept through New England, killing an estimated 80 percent of all children under the age of 10.
   Closer to our time is the 1931 Yangtze River Flood that drowned immediately and starved or sickened to death soon thereafter approximately 3.7 million folks.
   War, particularly in the Middle East, is mentioned as a sign of the times. A bad one is going on right now, though I doubt it's a sign. You have to go further back in time to see that this area has always been a mess.
   Shortly before A.D. 1218, Genghis Khan solved his own Afghanistan problem by killing 1.6 million people in just six months. And he did it without smart bombs.
   I'm not saying that the Second Coming isn't coming - only that watching for it   doesn't make a lot of sense. Everyone on this planet is in the process of dying in some way.
   Second-hand smoke killed 50,000 Americans last year. But because it was stretched over a year, nobody is calling it a sign of the times.
   Instead of fearfully watching for signs that happen to other people, start paying attention to your own situation and take heart in the fact that you can do something about it. How we live is more important than how we die.
    ---
   Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby welcomes mail at 143 S. Main St., Salt Lake City, UT 84111, or e-mail at rkirby@sltrib.com.  
   
   

Thanks for the chuckle!

And you in the bishopric yet! (that's the way my grandmother would say it to me).

If you ever want to undermine everything you are trying to become in life, go play ward basketball. I just lost every ounce of respect I have been working hard to build up over the last six months. No, I didn’t slam anybody into a fence, but I probably yelled with bulging eyes at the 215-pound rough boy that knocked me clean into the bleachers. Only four guys from our ward showed up. According to our rules, we don’t have to forfeit if we play four on five. They were five on the court, and seven deep. We were in dire trouble at the onset and I wanted to go home. If I had left, we would have automatically forfeited the game. I was trapped. Two minutes into the game, I go up for a rebound. Both hands on the ball, everything’s clean. Next thing I know, I’m hit in the face and flying backwards through the air. I land and slide along the floor with the 215-pounder. One of his giant, weight-bearing paws somehow winds up in my unoffending private quarters. Gasps and restrained laughter, no whistle.

In a desperate attempt to reclaim some dignity, I yelled “This has got to stop!” It was too late. All was lost. The worst part about it was the fact that I couldn’t leave. I leave, Haven ward forfeits, game over, poor sport. I suffered through four grueling quarters. Final score: Burton 53, Haven 25.

In five minutes, my head will be on my pillow. Perhaps sleep will dull the sting. Of course, all bets are off if I dream of heavy-handed gorillas.
S

I saw on my calendar that today is "Epiphany." Not knowing for sure what Epiphany is, I looked this up on a Christian web site:

"Epiphany is the climax of the Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are counted from December 25th until January 5th. The day before Epiphany is the twelfth day of Christmas, and is sometimes called Twelfth Night, an occasion for feasting in some cultures. In some cultures, the baking of a special King's Cake is part of the festivities of Epiphany (a King's Cake is part of the observance of Mardi Gras in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA).

"In traditional Christian churches Christmas, as well as Easter, is celebrated as a period of time, a season of the church year, rather than just a day. The Season of Christmas begins with the First Sunday of Advent, marked by expectation and anticipation, and concludes with Epiphany, which looks ahead to the mission of the church to the world in light of the Nativity. The one or two Sundays between Christmas Day and Epiphany are sometimes called Christmastide. For many Protestant church traditions, the season of Epiphany extends from January 6th until Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent leading to Easter. Depending on the timing of Easter, this includes from four to nine Sundays. Other traditions, especially the Roman Catholic tradition, observe Epiphany as a single day, with the Sundays following Epiphany counted as Ordinary Time. In some western traditions, the last Sunday of Epiphany is celebrated as Transfiguration Sunday."

The term epiphany means "to show" or "to make known" or even "to reveal." In Western churches, it remembers the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing "reveal" Jesus to the world as Lord and King. In some Central and South American countries influenced by Catholic tradition, Three Kings’ Day, or the night before, is the time for opening Christmas presents. In some eastern churches, Epiphany or the Theophany commemorates Jesus’ baptism, with the visit of the Magi linked to Christmas. In some churches the day is celebrated as Christmas, with Epiphany/Theophany occurring on January 19th.

When's the party?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN BRASHER!

Happy day dear family.