Lots of stuff going on today, so I'm just posting a recipe. Some of the people in my ward asked if I'd share it after I brought it to our church Halloween party last week. It looks complicated but it really comes together quickly once the chicken is done. Sometimes I cheat and use a rotisserie chicken. This is one of my favorite meals, but since none of my kids like it (is anyone surprised by that?) I don't make it very often. Which is probably a good thing, as it's not the healthiest thing I could make. Still: delicious!

3-4 chicken breasts
3 chicken bullion cubes
juice of two limes
1 onion, diced
1 stick butter
1/4 cup flour
1 can chicken broth
2 c half and half
1 c milk
2 tsp green Tabasco
2 tsp chili powder
1.5 tsp cumin
red pepper flakes
salt & pepper
2 cans white kidney beans
2 cans diced green chilis
2-3 cups corn
1.5 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup sour cream

Boil chicken in a broth made with water, lime juice, and chicken bullion. Shred. While the chicken is cooking, measure milk and half&half, then set aside to bring to room temperature.

Melt butter; saute onion till translucent. Add flour and heat until thick. Whisk in chicken broth, milk, and half&half until smooth and creamy. Add spices to taste. Drain beans; add with shredded chicken, diced green chilis, and corn. (If using canned corn, drain it first. If using frozen corn, just toss it into the chili still frozen.) Warm almost to boiling over medium heat, being careful not to scorch, stirring often. When hot, add cheese in small handfuls, stirring to melt between handfuls. Blend in sour cream just before serving.

Notes: Sometimes this turns out too thick, so I just add a few extra glugs of milk. Plus, I don't really measure the cheese, I just put some in. Finally, this does NOT taste the same if you use regular Tabasco. The green stuff is what makes it magical!

I can't do it, I thought, reading my friend Jessica's email about a half marathon she'd be running, there's no way I could be ready in time. Because, back in September when I realized the half I'd been training for was full, I stopped training. Kept running, of course, but only four or five miles a run. No Saturday long runs at all. There was no way I could be ready in four weeks.

I want to run this course

, I thought, reading online about the Snow Canyon Half Marathon. I've been to Snow Canyon once and thought to myself then (as I invariably think in any scenic landscape with a road) someone should plan a race here. It looks like this:
Gorgeous, yes? Looking at those photos from three years ago, thinking about challenging myself, there it was: I couldn't possibly be ready in time. But I wanted to run it anyway.

I'll just try some distance

, I thought, running on the treadmill one early morning. Just to see how far I can go. So last Saturday, I did—seven and a half miles in Provo Canyon. A nearly-perfect run—the autumn leaves lit up by the morning sun, the temperature just the right degree of chill, not cold enough to be cold, but nowhere close to warm. As I ran up the canyon, the runners coming down smiled hello at me and no one coming up behind me managed to pass me. And my legs—my legs felt awesome. Strong and fast and confident. My lungs were happy. I even had enough left at the end for a strong finishing push.

I can totally run this half marathon

, I thought, stretching on the bridge at the end of the trail, I am going to run it. Then, nearly simultaneously, it hit me: the race is the day before Jacob and Nathan's Primary program at church. How would I miss that? I don’t want to miss that. But I don’t want to miss the race, either. So I debated back and forth with myself. I figured out half-baked schemes for getting myself home on Saturday night instead of Sunday. I called powerful leaders in the Primary (you know who you are!) to beg that the day be changed. And I finally decided I couldn't run the race. It wouldn't be right to miss their program. I wanted to see their hard work more than I wanted to test mine.

Of course, all that agonized decision-making process could have been averted had I simply not assumed that Jessica would want to come home on Sunday. So when I let her know I couldn’t run it, and why, she assured me that she’d planned on coming home Saturday night anyway.

Duh

, I thought. And then where should I do my next long run? Just on the river trail again, today. I’m not sure how many miles I put in this afternoon—after finally getting all my laundry caught up, and running the Saturday errands, and taking Kaleb to his first-ever birthday party—because I went off-trail for awhile. Well, off the paved trail, right up the side of the mountain onto lonely and rocky trails that both thrilled and freaked me out (what if I come across a mountain lion? I kept thinking. This looks like mountain lion territory. As if I know what mountain lion territory looks like). But I pushed on for ninety minutes, until my legs pulsed with that numb-painful feel.

And even though I was exhausted at the end of this second long run, my face crusted with salt and two of my toes blistered, the first thing I did at home was register for the race. My mind's full of the things I need to do, now I know for certain I'm running it. Like buying some new socks, and finding some running shorts---or maybe even a running skirt, if I get brave like Becky did---with a pocket to carry some Gu. Oh, and, practicing with the Gu, which is far worse than blistered toes or tired legs. I expected today's run to be the hardest. Next Saturday's will be easier. Most of the race is mental, anyway. It's not really how far your legs will carry you. It's how far your mind will.

See, sometimes I do get to have my cake and eat it, too. I’m not sure just how crazy I am to want to eat the thirteen-point-one-mile cake without enough preparation.

But I want to eat that cake. Bad.

(PS, I canNOT figure out why those funky blank lines are appearing in my text. Typepad won't fix it no matter how I delete and re-save. So, funky lines it is...I'm too tired to figure it out!)

(props to you if you know the song my title alludes to!) I picked this up on Chris's blog, and as I don't have time (or the mental power) to write what I actually want to write, I am doing this meme instead. If you, too, want to answer 55 random questions about yourself, let me know and I will read yours, too! Wheeeeee!

1. What time did you get up this morning? I was shooting for 5:15, but I pushed the snooze button a few times; got out of bed at 6:00. I’m trying to start getting up early because lately I have no time for myself. But I am NOT a morning person, so this is hard for me!

2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds, although my favorite gem is the emerald.

3. Last movie you saw at a cinema? What Happens in Vegas. We hardly ever make it to the movies these days!

4. What is your favorite TV show? Honestly...I’m not loving anything. I usually watch a show at night with Kendell while I’m giving him his leg/scar massage. If I didn’t do that, I might just drop all my shows!

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Protein shake with berries and a banana. I usually like these, but this morning it turned out way to creamy and I could barely get it down. Nearly hurled in the sink. Next time, more berries, smaller banana!

6. What is your middle name? Lynne

7. What food do you dislike? Seafood. If I have to, I can struggle down a tun fish sandwich. Otherwise, I’m not a fan of anything with gills, claws, or shells.

8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? I recently discovered that the library has a fantabulous collection of not-very-well-known 80's music. (And I know exactly which media librarian to blame!) I’ve been listening to Blancmange for the past week, which is making me really happy, as I’d forgotten I loved it! I’ve also been listening to a lot of Tori Amos lately, whenever I’m sewing. Now if someone could tell me where to download some Vicious Pink I’d be a happy, happy girl. Well, at least as far as music goes.

9. What kind of car do you drive? Toyota corolla

10. Favorite sandwich? Turkey bacon avocado, with Swiss cheese and just a little bit of mayo.

11. What characteristic do you despise? People who flaunt their money/possessions/fabulously-expensive-new-boots etc.

12. Favorite item of clothing? If I could live in pajamas, I would. Right now, my favorites are the ones they sell at GapBody, made out of . So dang comfy! Unfortunately, I can’t wear PJs to work.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Ireland. Or hiking in the Swiss Alps. Or, did you know there’s a hiking trail to Maccu Piccu? I totally want to do that, too! Like the hikes in the Swiss Alps, it is a chartered thing, so you sleep in little bed-and-breakfasts at night, and your luggage is portered for you to the next stop. Doesn’t that sound fun?

14. Are you an organized person? I am SO NOT organized. At all. I wish I were. Kendell wishes I were, too. But, I’m not. You should see my desk right now.

15. Where would you retire to? Wherever I can be close to my kids and grandkids.

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? Yeah, no one in my family makes a big deal about my birthday. So, I have to go back to my teenage years to come up with a memorable birthday. My sixteenth, maybe, when I nearly won regionals (stupid fall on beam!). Eighteen was fairly memorable, too, but it requires way too much back story to explain why.

17. What are you going to do when you finish this? Pick Kaleb up from preschool, then go to the mall, as I cannot resist this orange sweater I found yesterday at Eddie Bauer. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

18. Farthest place you are sending this? Sometimes someone in South Africa reads my blog. Who are you??? ;)

19. Person you expect to send it back first? Well, no one, since I’m blogging this one instead of emailing it. BUT if you DO do it, let me know!

20. When is your birthday? April 20

21 . Morning person or a night person? See #1. I am definitely not a morning person. Although, I bet on the morning-person scale, I score higher than Becky. She is seriously and definitely not a morning person!

22. What is your shoe size? 8.5 or 9, depending on the shoe. I used to have cute little feet. Then I started having babies, and with each one I grew a shoe size. Highly annoying, as I had to get rid of shoes with each new baby.

23. Pets? Our very ancient kitty, Emily, who is nearly 15 years old. She mostly just sleeps now. But every morning when I put on my running shoes, she comes over to the porch, and we miaow at each other. Yes, I just confessed: I totally speak cat. Except for Becky’s cat, who once spent an entire night waiting to pounce on me if I moved in my sleep, all cats like me. It’s because I speak cat.

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Yes! Yesterday I bought myself a new denim skirt. In a size 6! Who knew? (I have to add this, though: I tried on about ten pair of pants; half the sixes fit, half the eights. Some sixes I couldn’t even do up. Is that weird or what?)

25. What did you want to be when you were little? A mother who went on frequent airplane trips (I was constantly taking my babies on pretend airplanes) and a writer.

26. How are you today? Tired. Who was it that said getting up early would give me more energy? ‘Cause they were totally lying.

27. What is your favorite flower? hyacinths, lilacs, iris. Daffodils. Tea roses. Foxglove, sweet William, zinnias. I can’t pick just one, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a flower I didn’t like.

28. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Every single Thursday. I am always grateful for Thursdays.

29. What are you listening to right now? Autumn’s Grey Solace, a band that initially interested me just because of its name!

30. What was the last thing you ate? That way-too-creamy protein shake. Gag!

32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Turquoise, but not because it’s my favorite color. It’s just my favorite crayon.

33. How is the weather right now? Surprisingly cold.

34. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My neighbor Emily, to see if she could take the kids to preschool so I could take Kendell to the doctor.

35. Favorite soft drink? Pepsi, although I think I can safely say, without tempting the Caffeine Gods, I have kicked my addiction.

36. Favorite restaurant? It really depends on my mood.

37. Hair color? Just shades of brown now. My red has faded, which makes me sad.

38. What was your favorite toy as a child? My baby dolls, the ones I found in that closet at my mom’s house last weekend. I totally brought them home!

39. Summer or Winter? It’s a toss up, because fall and spring are my favorite seasons.

41. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate, the darker the better!

42. Coffee or tea? I miss drinking coffee, but now I drink some herbal teas. With honey.

43. Do you want your friends to email you back? Absolutely, even though I sometimes flake on emailing them back.

44. When was the last time you cried? Friday night. No, Sunday. I always cry on fast Sunday.

45. What is under your bed? Some of Kaleb’s toys—mostly farm animals—my slippers, a few random socks, and maybe a sippy cup. And dust.

46. What did you do last night? Ran errands, made that homemade pizza everyone wanted on Sunday, cleaned the kitchen, sorted laundry, rubbed Kendell’s legs. Finally slept.

47. What are you afraid of? Kendell and I were talking about colostomy bags this morning on the way home from his dr. appointment. There are many medical things I am afraid of, and the colostomy bag is definitely one of them! Oh, and spiders. And bees. I totally freak in the presence of bees. It’s that creepy way their legs hang down and flop when they’re flying. Plus the stinger. And don’t get me started on spiders.

48. Salty or sweet? Both, hence cheese on pie. (Cheddar on apple, if you’re thinking I’m weird, although that clarification might not have done anything to dispel your sense of me being weird.)

49. How many keys on your key ring? Five

50. How many years at your current job? Almost six months as a librarian.

51. Favorite day of the week? Thursday.

52. Do you make friends easily? No. I wish I did, though.

53. How many people will you send this to? Whomever reads my blog.

54. How many people will reply? Not sure.

55. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends? Yes! If I know them. If I come across a meme on the blog of someone I don’t know, though, I generally skip them.

Lately, dinners on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are sort of haphazard affairs at my house. So I've been trying to make big Sunday dinners. Although everyone wanted homemade pizza tonight, we had chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade rolls, and apple crisp instead. (I thought I had some mozzarella, but alas, I was wrong. Well, I did have a small sliver of what appeared to be mozzarella underneath all its fuzzy green mold, but, well...chicken it is!) I had intended on making the crispy chicken I usually make, but I was out of sour cream, so I improvised, and that improv lead to another one. I was chopping pecans for the apple crisp and had this thought: how about pecans on the chicken, too? Here's my Improv Chicken that turned out delicious! (Remember, though: I cook big portions, so I have a LOT left over; adjust your portions accordingly.)

3-ish pounds of chicken breasts or tenders
2 eggs
1 cup blue cheese dressing (the improv for the sour cream)
1/4 cup milk
handful of pecans, chopped finally
4 pieces wheat bread, toasted (a great use for the heels!)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp Italian seasoning
generous twists of freshly-ground black pepper

Wash the chicken and cut off all offending yuckies. Dry with paper towels. In a square, shallow bowl, beat eggs; add dressing and milk, then whisk until smooth. Break the toasted bread into small chunks, then process in your blender or food processor until fine crumbs. Add seasonings and process again. Pour the now-seasoned bread crumbs into another shallow bowl; mix in pecans. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil, then spray with Pam. Dredge chicken first in the egg mixture, then in the crumbs; place on sheet. Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes, or until chicken is white all the way through. (The time varies, depending on how much chicken you're cooking and if you're using tenders or breasts.)

Bask in a meal during which not one single, solitary "I don't like this" or "this is gross" is heard.

After many blustery threatenings yesterday (and a great long run punctuated with random snowflakes), we woke up to a thin sheet of snow. Kaleb immediately wanted to go outside to build a snowman, so he and Nathan bundled up and gave it a shot. Not enough snow for a snowman, but enough for a few good snowballs before breakfast.

It's early for the first snowfall, which is making me hopeful we'll have another snowy winter like last year. Still, it was strange to wake up to white again, especially with the outside still looking like fall and even, in some little garden pockets, summer. 

Here's the thing about being busy: I've got plenty to blog about, but no time to write. Like: teaching again, today, just for the afternoon; General Conference and the Saturday Miracle I Didn't Know I Needed (that is the official title, by the way); book exchange book reviews, along with about ten other book notes that are piling up in my brain; a Halloween stupor of thought; my attempts at being crafty for church; eye surgery. Oh, and, get this: over the past 24 hours or so, Kaleb has eaten three apple slices. Three. In his life, when any part of an apple making its way into his belly is unheard of, three slices is another miracle.

But what really keeps coming to my mind is the revelation I had on Sunday. My mom had dinner at her house, and honestly: I was a little bit anxious about going. The last time we had a big family dinner was Easter, which was sort of disastrous in my eyes, one of the first times in my life I've felt truly uncomfortable in the presence of most of my family. I didn't want to feel that way again, but it went smoothly, an afternoon that found me laughing a bit, and wishing I'd worn a sweater, and enjoying cheese potatoes with gusto.

My mom is just barely beginning the process of cleaning out her house; now that Dad is in his rest home, she has finally decided to sell and move closer to the rest of us. Since Mom is—well, let's put it frankly, a pack rat—the next few months will be interesting. She started the cleaning-out process in the closet of the bedroom that Becky and I used to share when we were really little, and then was just hers; later, when Dad’s snoring got to be too much for Mom to deal with, it became his bedroom. The closet is full of her overflow of clothes, as well as stacks and stacks and stacks of books. She'd pulled most of Dad's books out of the closet and spread them out on the bed, a display that felt like an odd sort of Christmas morning. I suspected there'd be a lot of Stephen King, and I was right; there were also some surprising things, like books by Ted Kooser and Edward Abbey. Sadly, his copy of Desert Solitaire was missing its first five pages or so, or I would have kept it. I did grab a few books, including my old copy of Bevington’s Collected Shakespeare.

That pile of books gave me pause; it is a sort of catalogue of Dad's mind, the stories that entertained, the ideas that resonated. I flipped through a few of them, wishing he were a carnal lover of books like I am---wish he had written something in them. His book choices would say something to someone who didn't know him, but for me it was repetition; I wanted to learn something about him that I didn’t know before. Can our possessions do that, can they tell someone something we forgot to tell them ourselves? I'm not sure, but staring at the accumulated store of my father's reading material made me think about my own stuff, my own mortality. When I am gone, will anyone care that I did write stuff in my books? Will they know my code: a bent-down corner means I loved something on that page but didn't have a pen to underline it when I was reading. My thoughts pushed out: will my other possessions matter to anyone, once I am gone? Will anyone want to keep, say, a quilt I made, or my recipe book? And what about my journals and scrapbooks?

I turned my back to the bed and started taking from the shelves the stuff that Mom hadn't, mostly a rag-tag collection of old books from our childhood. Two out of the seven Chronicles of Narnia had been buried in that closet; seeing the covers was like standing in the room with my elementary-school-aged self. Half of On the Banks of Plum Creek, half of Mandy, half of Ballet Shoes with my name, written in clumsy cursive, in the back. Where did the other halves go? Just one of my used-to-be-complete (and very much loved) set of Anne of Green Gables; some picture books I remember vividly. I also found my favorite childhood companions, Bubba and Sissy the rag dolls; Sissy was missing her pinafore and Bubba was completely naked, but I am happy to have them back. Oh, and the flapper costume I wore for a dance recital sometime in the early 80's.

The last thing I took from that bedroom was a stack of old magnetic photo albums that had belonged to my Grandma Elsie, my dad’s mom. Once I got home that night, I looked through them. And that was when I finally had that revelation. As I flipped through the photos she thought important enough to use a frame or two of film on from 1986-1989, I thought about the slight relationship I had with her. She wasn’t very involved in my life. I don’t know that anyone could tell me why, and I suppose it was a mix of stories I don’t know. I didn’t question this, as a kid; she was just Grandma Elsie, with her walls full of every cat calendar she’d ever received (each turned to its correct month), who we saw at Christmas and on birthdays and a few other occasions. I didn’t wonder why I felt much less important than the older cousins; I just knew I was and that was just how it was.

So I’ve never really thought about her impact on my life. But flipping through her photos, I realized that maybe I am more like her than I know. She took pictures and wrote about them. Granted—not enough words, in any way. I'm left wondering, for example, how she broke her kneecap during her trip to Canada, or how she felt about Bryce Canyon. But still, putting her pictures with words was important to her. And, get this: she didn’t just take pictures of her grand kids and her trips with friends. She took photos of snowy landscapes, of flowers, of her house. She had pictures of the mountains in her albums, too.

This felt so much like me. She stood at the same spot at Bryce that I did; she took a picture. I flipped through her photographs in my dark and quiet house, thinking about Dad’s books, about bits of my childhood stacked up in a messy closet, about mortality, about the world going past me. About whoever will come after me who might want to know me, too. In the exhumations of the closet, I didn’t learn a whole lot about Dad that I didn’t already know; I reacquainted myself with things I’d forgotten. I did learn something about my grandma, though, and it gave me an answer to one my persistent questions: is time spent scrapbooking wasted time? I don’t think so. Maybe time spent agonizing over little scrapbook details is a little bit wasted (the lack of accents or embellishments in Elsie’s photo albums wasn’t even noticed), but the writing + words thing? Never.

Back when my dad was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, one of my initial impulses was this pervasive desire to record more of my life. I’ve always kept a journal, of course, but up until then I’d never done a scrapbook layout about myself. Hundreds and hundreds for my kids? Of course. Put pairing photos, words, and pretty stuff just for me seemed sort of...redundant, maybe. (Who would want to read them?) Or selfish. (Because isn’t there a never-ending supply of photos of my kids to scrap? Don’t I have a responsibility to write down what they won’t remember?) But as I watched bits and pieces of Dad fall away, I couldn’t stop thinking: what if that happens to me? I need to have my memories recorded, too.

That’s when the scrapbooking muse started tickling my creativity bone. I bought an album just for me and made a few layouts—about myself. I confess: it does feel a little weird. But even three years later, it still feels important. At least every six months or so, I find a photo of myself (again; something highly uncomfortable, handing the camera over to someone else and actually being in the picture) and write journaling that focuses on my life right now. Some layouts read like a calendar, others like short stories. But I like getting down the little pieces and parts that combine to form my dreams, anxieties, desires, obsessions, and habits.

So when Stacy J. told me about her "present-moment" scrapbooking challenge, I was necessarily on board. While it feels strange, initially, focusing on yourself for a bit causes this unexpected reaction: you start to pay attention to your now even more. You realize that you won’t always be worrying over _____________, which puts it in perspective; you won’t always be experiencing _______________, which helps you savor it. You see that your life right this moment is extraordinary and special. Time you won’t ever get to revisit, experiences you’ll remember as the way things used to be—and suddenly you see your own value, the stuff that is inherent in you no matter what your title (mom, wife, employee, whatever).

So! Here’s the challenge:

• Sometime in the next two weeks, snap ten different photos of your life right now. Try to capture both the unique and the mundane. One must be a photo of you! (That’s not on the original challenge, by the way, but I’m being bossy and adding it.)
• Make a little scrapbook using your pictures. When I say "little" I mean: low stress.
• Keep it in your purse always. For one entire year!
• Whenever you see your little book, open it up and look at it.
• On October first, 2009, make an entire layout about the experience. (I’ll remind you!)

If you don’t scrapbook, that’s OK. Just try taking the ten pictures and writing about them, and then next year you can revisit them.

Two things to get you started:

These kids! Being a wooth makes me want to become a better mom. They are all growing up and I feel like I'm in this weird stage---the dreaded post-baby days. I want them to have an unshakeable knowledge of how much I love them. A quick I-love-this about each of them: Haley's love of photo shoots, whether they involve her or one of her friends; Jake getting so involved in his Grandpa Kent's Edgar Rice Burroughs books (Tarzan etc); Nathan's desire to go to Target almost every day, just so he can look at all the swords and other grizzy weapons that crowd the shelves for Halloween; Kaleb's recent need to say "Mom? I love you, Mom!" and "Mom? What is your name again?" and then he laughs and says "oh yeah" when I tell him, as if he had forgotten. Whenever I take a picture of any of them, we have to start with a silly face, and then they'll smile.

Kendell is almost recuperated from his surgery. "Almost" meaning his right hip still hurts, and he's not 100%, but he is getting there. I'm still giving him nearly-every-night leg-and-scar massages. Things are slowly starting to return to normal around here!

I know that doesn't look like a photo of my dad, but it represents him. I still haven't brought myself to take a photo of him at his rest home, but I took this after we visited him for the first time. I left that home knowing that my dad doesn't know who I am---a strange feeling. We went for a short little hike in Rock Canyon after we visited him, and as I walked in the mountains I was filled with this feeling I am still struggling to explain---an even-stranger peace. I felt like I should try to savor and appreciate in his stead, as if me just enjoying my own life would be enough for him.

Fall is here! The leaves on the mountains make me want to go hiking. So far we've done a bit of Dry Canyon, Rock Canyon, and Payson Canyon. The Halloween decorations are up, the kids are in serious costume decision-making process, and I am loving all the color everywhere. I love, love, love the fall. Did I mention it's my favorite?

I'm an idiot. I've been training for my half-marathon. But I neglected to actually sign up for it. Now it's too late: it's full. DANG. But, I am still in love with running. I got new shoes a few weeks ago and my feet are much happier! I run anywhere from 35-50 minutes. Uphill is still my favorite!

Working at the library is having a serious impact on my piles of books. Translation: there are more piles. I seem to find something else I am dying to read every time I shelf read. I just finished Life of Pi and now I'm trying to decide what to read next; I have 18 items checked out!

One of my favorite fall things: the way the light is colored, and how it falls around and through the last of the flowers. I still have some roses blooming, a bunch of fushia-colored flowers I don't know the name of, and a few zinnias. I'm starting the fall garden clean out, digging out the spent sunflowers and trimming off perennials.

Creative projects are overtaking my desk. I'm about one-third the way through an autumn-colored rag quilt, and I've got flannel lined up for Christmas gifts, and another Christmas quilt I am dying to make. New BP class, various scrapbook layouts, a craft project for the young women. I want more time to work on everything!

Financial crisis, global warming, hurricanes, wild fires, nuclear weapons in Korea: seems like it is always bad news. But I still try to read the newspaper most days, even if it's just the headlines. I never miss the obituary pages, and the kids have discovered the comics page.

Haley took this picture of me in Dry Canyon. I am tempted to make a snide comment about my high forehead but instead I will say: I am happy in the mountains and I'm grateful to live near them.

You can also blog about this. Send the idea to your blogging friends—challenge your readers, too. Tons of other scrapbookers are blogging about it today, in fact—check out Stacy's blog for a list of links!