Quiet Week, Busy Weekend

Yuli, Hyeji and Camden eating seaweed and rice at Jieun's art studio

Elise and Andy went to Charleston for the weekend to celebrate her birthday.  She's been there before (probably many times, but she found this picture taken in the same spot).

Happy Birthday, Elise!

Life can be so hard (I agree, Yuli, it's been a hard week)

Roy spent a couple of nights at the cabin to do some more chores.  He loves it up 
there, even though he works hard most of the time he's there.  As you can see, this antelope buck 
was right by the street in town.  He's excited because he drew out on an antelope for the upcoming 
hunt starting in September (he feels pretty lucky).  He's already scouted out some places to go and has seen some big bucks just hanging out.  Since Roy is good at making friends, he's also received permission to hunt on the private land of some ranchers that would like to get rid of a few antelope. He told Keith that he'd love to get an antelope that grazes on alfalfa.  Keith said, "You're not picky at all, are you?"

We hit my 45th high school reunion on the way to Jason Cook's wedding reception
at Phil's house.  In the picture:

Me, Duane Jennings, Stewart McIver, Jani Iwomoto, Suzy Harmon, Steve Schetler
It was a pretty small turnout, but there were several of us from my ward growing up. Steve Schetler,  Rob Ryberg, and Adrienne Butler. 

We arrived at the wedding reception in plenty of time--we thought--but as we walked into Phil's backyard we found the whole wedding party playing in the pool--fully dressed of course.  I guess they'd gotten the party going early (5:00) and were pretty much done when we got there.  We were able to talk to everyone we cared to talk to...Phil and Char and their girls. Bruce and Barbara, Carrie and Andy and Jeff.  At least there was a little bit of food left because we were pretty hungry. 

On the way home from Jason's wedding reception, I noticed a voice message that said, "Hi Cathy, it's Marty Money (new neighbor) We had a question and haven't seen this before and we're just thinking maybe some grass clippings ended up on our side of the fence somehow but it was from your yard.  I kind of noticed it here on our fenceline so anyway maybe you could help us unravel this mystery..."

Roy and I were so puzzled.  We were worried that this new neighbor was going to be nitpicky about a few grass clippings slipping under the fence.  However, it was a little worse than that.  It was piles of grass.  Roy asked our new lawn boy if he had dumped the grass over the fence into the Money's yard.  He said, "Yes."  "Why?"  "Because you told me to?"  Roy had showed him several places he could dump the grass, but I guess he assumed the 13 year-old would know that he meant for him to dump it on our side of the fence.  We laughed so hard.  Apparently this kid had absolutely no common sense.  We straightened it out with the neighbor and will no longer be dumping our grass clippings in her yard!

Ben gave a fabulous homecoming talk.  He started by saying that he really was old enough to drive and that the mission age had not been lowered again.  I guess he had a lot of people in France tease him about how young he looked.  

It was fun to see Christine's new grandbabies, Miles (Andrew's) and Peter's baby (name?)  She had everyone there but Nathanael and his family, and Sarah and her family.

I got to hold Foster for a good part of the meeting before she started getting this little frown on her face that meant, "I'm ready for my mom and I'm about to cry."  She is a sweetheart and seems to love her grandparents.  The lunch afterwards was delicious and it was great to visit with everyone again--but this time I got to visit with Nan and Bruce, Christine and Steve, and Dave in addition to some of those we'd seen the night before.

Sunday evening we were one of the families hosting the ward "Walk About."  A few families have treats and everyone walks (or drives) around and visits with each other.  I made snow cones, which was a hit, but was labor intensive enough that I didn't get to sit and visit very much.  I also had three kind of cookies (I was in a baking mood this week).  It was a lot of fun to see ward members and I really enjoyed having everyone enjoy our yard.  

Elise sent me this great quote that she’d read earlier this week. A lot of us love Brandon Sanderson’s fiction. He’sa deep thinker and this quote is good for thought. 

“Neither [ruin nor preservation] could create alone,” Haddek said. “No, they could not. For, to preserve something is not to create it—and “neither can you create through destruction only.”

It was a common theme in mythology—Sazed had read it in dozens of the religions he’d studied. The world being created out of a clash between two forces, sometimes rendered as chaos and order, sometimes named destruction and protection. That bothered him a little bit. He was hoping to discover something new in the things men were telling him.

And yet . . . just because something was common, did that make it false? Or, could all of those mythologies have a shared, and true, root?”…

“Another common mythological theme—the martyr god. It was one that Sazed himself had witnessed in the birth of the Church of the Survivor.

Yet . . . this time it’s my own religion, he thought. He frowned, leaning back, trying to decide how he felt. For some reason, he had assumed that the truth would be different. The scholarly side of him argued with his desire for belief. How could he believe in something so filled with mythological clichés?

He’d come all this way, believing that he’d been given one last chance to find the truth. Yet, now that he studied it, he was finding that it was shockingly similar to religions he had rejected as false.

“You seem disturbed, child,” Haddek said. “Are you that worried about the things we say?”

“I apologize,” Sazed said. “This is a personal problem, not related to the fate of the Hero of Ages.”

“Please, speak,” one of the others said.

“It is complicated,” Sazed said. “For some time now, I have been searching through the religions of mankind, trying to ascertain which of their teachings were true. I had begun to despair that I would ever find a religion that offered the answers I sought. Then, I learned that my own religion still existed, protected by the kandra. I came here, hoping to find the truth.”

“This is the truth,” one of the kandra said.”

“That’s what every religion teaches,” Sazed said, frustration mounting. “Yet, in each of them I find inconsistencies, logical leaps, and demands of faith I find impossible to accept.

“It sounds to me, young one,” Haddek said, “that you’re searching for something that cannot be found.”

“The truth?” Sazed said.

“No,” Haddek replied. “A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”

Excerpt From

Mistborn Trilogy: The Final Empire, the Well of Ascension, the Hero of Ages

Brandon Sanderson