Cabin Trips, Petersboro, Healthy Sandy, Gone with the Wind and Family News

Paul continues to improve. He is now sleeping a little bit better, and spending most of the night in bed rather than awake and sitting up. He is back at work almost full time; there is still a significant level of discomfort and pain, but he is doing physical therapy and he does see some light at the end of the tunnel, though still quite distant. It has been a long haul for him and he is looking forward to having this all behind him. In a few more months it will be a dull and unhappy memory. I have been involved and busy these last couple of weeks with many small and big projects. Paul and I have been going to the cabin every other weekend for the last month and a half to check on the horses. We went the first weekend in September and we are leaving today to go there again. The weekend of the 5th-7th we had a really lovely time. The weather was really nice and because we had done some really serious repair work the previous time in August when we were there, the fences were in good shape. We saw Connie and Ralph and visited with them briefly and really enjoyed the get-away. We still love going to the cabin and we have gotten really good at packing in and out when we go to the cabin for these short weekends. We stopped in Petersboro on the way home and walked around our property. We are getting serious about our barn and are making important decisions about where we want to put it on the property. This weekend we are just racing up and back. Normally we stay and go to church at Mack’s Inn, but this Saturday evening there is a concert at the Assembly Hall featuring the Music of Crawford Gates which I want to attend, so Paul agreed to come back on Saturday afternoon in time to make the concert. Our intent and reason to go to Island Park is to check on the horses and the fences and we can do that on Saturday morning and then come on home. It is hard to know how many more opportunities to share an evening like this with my dad and mom are in the future—so we will take advantage of the ones that come and be happy for them, even if it means a very quick trip to the cabin this week. Sandy City has continued their summertime health initiative into the fall this year and I signed up again for Healthy Sandy which involves a number of small healthy lifestyle challenges—centered around walking, which I do anyway. The new session started on the 8th, and I have been meeting their challenges. Every Monday evening there is “a walk”. It is organized at one of the many Sandy Parks which have walking trails and you are expected to come and walk the trail a specified number of loops. You walk at your own pace and can start and stop when you want. Each week there is also a talk on some aspect of health and lifestyle which starts at 6:00 p.m.—you can walk before or after the talk. You get points for listening to the lecture as well. The park location changes every week and there is also a challenge walk every week as well—to be completed sometime during the week (an easy option 1-2 laps—or a more challenging option 4-5 laps) also at a different park each week. I have now completed two weeks in the eight week challenge. Erika and I did the summer series two different years, but now that she doesn’t live in the same house with me, it is more challenging to do it together, this fall session I am doing without her, although another friend joins me sometimes for the Monday walks. Paul recently ordered a set of plans for the barn from an architectural company that provides plans for a number of barns, sheds, out buildings, stables and the like. We had been poking around the internet for some time looking for plans that met all our criteria and desires. This plan isn’t perfect, but as close to what we both want than anything else we have seen. Paul would like to change the slope of the roof and extend the eaves more, but it has the right size and shape and elements that were important to me—like a loft that we can use as living space if we want. It is exciting to see this plan take shape—to realize that we will be able to actually build a barn on our property. On Saturday the 13th Paul and I spent the day in Cache County. We drove up with tools for measuring and marking the possible location of our building. We have to figure out where we think we want the house and then figure out where we want the barn relative to that and how it works with the undulating nature of our land. We think that we have picked out a place that will work for an attached paddock and a good location not to obstruct a view of the valley from our house when it is built. It was a fun process—measuring, reviewing, looking at the site, etc. When we finished at the property we went into Logan, picked up some items at CAL Ranch and then decided to go to a movie. Without really knowing what we wanted to see we just headed for a theater. The Giver was showing within about twenty minutes of our arrival so we decided to go see that. I had read the book years ago, when we first moved back from Germany. It was published in 1993 and won the Newbery Award in 1994. I disliked this book. It has been a darling of book readers, critics and many, many of my book club friends, but I never liked it. I found it quite disturbing. When the movie was announced, I thought I should perhaps read it again, and see if as I have aged I would like it better—or at least “get” what made it appealing to so many other people. And now here was an opportunity to see the movie without really make plans to do so and see if I liked it better on the screen than in print. And so we watched it. ---As a total aside to this story, normally Paul and I never buy popcorn or treats at a movie, but we had been outside tramping around the property for a couple of hours and it was well past lunchtime and we were both kind of hungry and so Paul bought a tub (more a barrel, really) which included refills and a couple of drinks and while we were waiting for the movie to start—between the two of us we finished all the popcorn and so Paul went back and got a refill—which thankful we hardly made a dent in—but we had planned on getting something to eat after the movie and we were both so full of popcorn that we skipped the dinner altogether.---So what did I think of The Giver? I thought it had some wonderful production values—the use of black and white and color was amazing. I thought the casting was very good and the sets really interesting. I was glad that I had the chance to see the movie, but I can’t really say that I really liked it. The things that disturbed me initially in the book still disturbed me. I am feeling like I have just been exposed to many teenage angst/dystopian society pieces in the last while to appreciate any of it—between The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Giver I feel like I am hearing/reading/seeing the same story in a different dress. Would I recommend this movie? I wouldn’t discourage anyone from seeing it if they read the book and liked it-it was a good rendering. And in fairness, Paul thought that the ending was positive (and it was) and so put a redeeming spin on the movie. Yesterday was my book club meeting for this month. I was the host and it was my book selection. I had selected Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This was a pretty long book; the mass market edition which used had more than 1000 pages. But it was an interesting read and generated a lively discussion among our ladies. While we usually serve some kind of refreshments at our meetings, we don’t usually put on a whole meal (except at our Christmas party), but I decided that I would like to host a Southern Dinner and prepared a meal of southern style food in the way meals are described in the book. I eventually ended up serving fried chicken, whipped sweet potatoes, carrots, and acorn squash with cornbread and then for dessert I served an apple crisp cookie bar and peach pie. It was really enjoyable. I set the table with china that I inherited from my grandmother, it is my most old fashioned looking china and vintage cut glass candelabra that my mother gave me a few years back which matches those particular dishes. So it was a fun and festive meal. Additionally we discussed with much enthusiasm Antebellum South, the Civil War, Reconstruction, slavery and the wonderfully drawn characters of Margaret Mitchell. We talked about the Lost Cause Literary movement of which Gone with the Wind is the poster child and we also watched the Carol Burnett version of Gone with the Wind titled Went with the Wind from youtube.com and we all laughed a lot over it. Erika, who put me up to this book, having read it and loved it, told me that she had never had anyone to talk to about it and wanted to come. So she came and joined the fun and it was really delightful to have her as part of the group. The ladies invited her to continue to come, I don’t know if she will, she has a pretty full life and might not want to read all of our choices, but it was great to have her be a part of this one. I’m including an invitation to the evening because I thought it was an appropriate invitation and I had a good time putting it together. Other items of interest from the home front: Philip and Camille are entering their last month in Washington D.C. by October 29th they will be in Kiev. They are really excited to be going and are looking forward to going with much anticipation. They have received their housing assignment there, and have been using googlemaps to look at their location and figure out what is close and what they can easily walk to. The embassy is not close. Philip is trying to figure out what he wants to do about a car. It is the detail he is working on now. Peter and Kortney took another trip to Tennessee and the environs, doing a road trip and having a great time and catching two more state capitol building. We saw them on Sunday. Big news is that Eleanor is toilet trained. Everyone happy and proud over that. And so life goes on.