Pick a Side

I'm reading "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusack. It's a good book in a distractedly-stream-of-consciousness kind of way. I like the aspect of the narrator being death, or the Grim Reaper or whatever way you wish to describe the gatherer of souls. I've been reading in short bursts and I feel that that is an appropriate strategy for attacking this book. I must confess though that I'm tired of Nazi-Germany-struggle- of-WWII books. I am totally convinced that Nazi's are bad. Not that this belief was up for debate before but I can solidly put myself in the Anti-Nazi category. My question would be this, after countless books have been written on this subject, after many stories of hope and tragedy have been told, have we learned anything? I will add another confession and that is, I don't think so. The more I read the Book of Mormon, books like "Night", "Number the Stars", "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and then today's news I'm not convinced. Human beings just repeat the same cycles over and over. I think that the question is not "have we learned anything" but "what kind of participant we will be"? Will we choose the side of protagonist or antagonist? I'm thinking that there will be many fooled into thinking they are the former and it won't be until the conflict is over and the books are written that the clarity will come.

We'll see.

I MADE this!

I made this canopy for Lucy's room today! I think it turned out really cute and it was super easy! I got the instructions and idea from Family Fun magazine, it's the best!

The End is Upon Us

Here are my teacher gifts this year. It was so last minute so they're kind of simple but I think they're cute. I know the tin says "snacks" but I think you get the idea.



The card read:"Mrs. LeBaron; "It was a real TREAT learning from you."



This is the beach bag we made for Young Women's. They took forever to do but they turned out cute!

A Size Too Small

I was perusing one of my favorite sites today and came across an add for T-shirts. These were really cute so I clicked on the ad and was taken to the T-shirt site. Of course, these shirts (out of L.A.) were stupidly expensive but what made me laugh was the size options. I kid you not...the size range was 1,2,3 or 4. Okay, so the 4 was an extra large. I thought, maybe I'm being a little harsh let me check out the size chart. Size 4 is about a size 10. When did size 10 become extra large?

Hey, T-shirt people here's a little fact; everyone who lives outside of L.A.- we actually eat food.

My Own Personal Amex Ad

One tent: $200



Six sleeping bags: $150



Fixin's for S'mores: $5




Camping in the backyard.....priceless

Do or Do Not

My son tried out for competitive soccer a couple of nights ago. He did a great job and was selected to play on an existing team taking one of three open spots. I am really proud of him and yet somewhat unnerved by the level of discipline required to participate. He is very excited about this opportunity and as long as that is the case, I will support him in this endeavor. I have lots of thoughts on the seriousness of competition at young ages but that will be a separate post.
Today I was thinking about the advice I gave my son as he was getting ready to play for the onlooking coaches. I told him "Just do your best." While he was playing, I realized that often times in the past I have counseled him to "try your hardest" and it struck me that there is a difference between these two statements. While I know that I have used them interchangeably, they really mean something very different. I think the greatest explanation of this can be attributed to Master Yoda when he says "Do or do not...there is no try."
While I think that giving things a good old "college try" is important I really believe that if someone goes into something expecting to "do" their best they will be more likely to succeed.
I am impressed that my son did his best

From an Anthropological Standpoint

My friend and I were discussing a book she was reading the other day. It is a story about women in China and it records a foot binding event that took place in the heroine's life. She, at the age of 8 (late by the standards at the time) had her feet bound to look like "lotus blossoms". It's really very disturbing to see photos of women who have had this ritual done and then to hear an actual account of how it took place. Our conversation then turned to all the different cultural rituals that take place, things from lip and ear disks to neck rings to genital mutilation. My friend made the comment about how grateful she was that our society doesn't do things like that and I couldn't help but point out that first, each culture finds those things appropriate for their members and second, Americans have their own weired ritual in plastic surgery. I think that somehow we assume that since we elect to have our bodies augmented and we do so under anesthesia that it's appropriate. I think it will make a great topic for a book in 150 years when anthropologists dig up skeletons of females with strange, gel-like disks on their rib cages. Can't you read it now? "One hundred fifty years ago, American culture valued large breasted women and it was not uncommon for women of many ages to have gel-like implants placed in their breast tissue, enlarging the breasts, often times at great personal risk to the woman participating in the procedure."