And to Each is Given a Talent...or Two!

My favorite painting of the Oakland Temple by A Rounds
This painting was done in 1985 and I would love to buy
one but I cannot find it anywhere.
If you ever see one please let me know!

Yesterday afternoon Jim spoke at a baptism in Oakland so we had the privilege of spending some time on Temple Hill. After the baptism of a young woman named Julia, we walked over to the Visitors' Center to see the beautiful sculptures of the Savior and His life. It was amazing. This wonderfully talented woman has created 13 sculptures for an exhibit that will be in Oakland until January 2009. It is free to the public and a must see for any Christian.

This sculpture is not included in the exhibit but is presented in the rotunda of the Visitors' Center for all to see. It is the only piece that they allow you to photograph. Unfortunately, the lighting was so bright due to the huge glass surround windows, that the photos do not begin to doing the piece justice.

This artist, Angela Johnson, has an amazing story. She is an opera singer that studied for years to fulfill her dream of singing at the Met. She became very accomplished but did not pass her audition for the Met in her late 30's. She was devastated after so many years of work and sacrifice to attain this goal. On her way home from the audition she was compelled to stop at a craft store and felt impressed to purchase some clay and one sculpting tool. By late that night she had sculpted a bust of a little girl.

She has never stopped sculpting since that day. This is a totally God-given talent that she did not even know she had. This exhibition has a life size sculpture of Christ that she completed in five weeks! It is very awe inspiring, to say the least. She has completed hundreds of sculptures and I can't imagine she is much over 40 now. Amazing! On Nov 8th she is giving a fireside lecture in Oakland where she will sing, as well as talk about her art work.



Double click on the brochure front and back to get more info and to see some professional photos of the pieces. Better yet if you will be in the area~go and see them for yourself. You will be glad you did.

Doesn't it make you want to run out and buy some clay?


This is my 400th Post since last December!
Thank you to all of you readers that have loyally stood by and kept reading!

Dreaming

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Try as they would to stay awake and
prevent dreaming nightmares...they couldn't take it another minute...

This morning both Jim and I awakened with tales to tell each other about the totally bizarre dreams we had last night. I got up immediately and looked up the purpose of dreams on our friend, Google. This is an excerpt from the first article I ran into and I think it is interesting, fascinating, and fun to think about.

"With the advent of computers, it became fashionable to say that dreams are "clearing out the software" from a busy day, or that they are a form of "off-line" processing to save the good stuff and get rid of the useless. Aside from the fact that such theories show how susceptible our supposedly highest thinking is to the dominant technology of any given era, the problem with this theory of dream function is that very, very little in dreams deals with the events of the day. Often there is some little leftover from the day, first noticed by Freud and named "day residue," but the rest of the dream is a story that does not deal with actual events. The story is usually plausible and even mundane, and it often contains the most important people and concerns of our lives, but it is nonetheless a story.

We are thinking creatures because thinking is a valuable adaptation, but that doesn't mean that all forms of thinking have a function. Dreams at this moment in the collective findings of dream researchers seem to be a "throw-away" production, an off-hand story to while the night away. That judgment could be changed tomorrow by new and original studies by a new generation of young dream researchers, but right now the preponderance of the evidence weights against any physiological or psychological function for dreaming and dreams.

(Click here for a detailed refutation of the "problem-solving" theory of dreams.)

This doesn't mean that dreams have no "meaning," that they make no sense. To the contrary, dreams correlate with age, gender, culture, and personal preoccupations, as evidence on this site and in many research studies suggests.

"Meaning" has to do with coherence and with systematic relations to other variables, and in that regard dreams do have meaning. Furthermore, they are very "revealing" of what is on our minds. We have shown that 75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual. Give us 1000 dreams over a couple of decades and we can give you a profile of the person's mind that is almost as individualized and accurate as her or his fingerprints."these are some of the thoughts of G. Willam Domhoff. To read his complete article click here.

This sentence has me very worried about both Jim and me! "Dreams are very "revealing" of what is on our minds. We have shown that 75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual."

If this is true then our dreams absolutely must remain very private to protect our good names and reputations! (How's that for presumptuous assumptions?) All I can say is, over time is keep a close eye on both of us! And thanks, in advance, for any help you can give!

Are your nights spookier than your days? What is your take on dreaming?

flickr* places and faces have been changed to protect the innocent (you) from seeing what we really do look like when we sleep!

Any Suggestions For November Get Away?

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I posted this a few days ago but got no comments so I am trying again for some hints on fun places!

Wow, the weeks have been flying by over here. We are not only living a displaced life in the NY time zone while living in CA, but it feels like the NY minutes are invading us as well. We have been helping on Jeff's school board campaign and right on top of it we have Scouting for Food on Nov 15th. But when that is over then we are going to take a little down time and just "be" for awhile. For Jim that probably means a good night's sleep but for me it means getting away for a few days.

So I was wondering if any of you have any suggestions for a fun 2-night 3- day get away for two. I remember that Deanna and Christian had a wonderful one at the Union Hotel in Benicia and then off to Agate Cove Inn in Mendocino.

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I am thinking of something like that. We may also go to to Nevada City/Grass Valley and may even have a little Sierra foothills snow. They have a fun chestnut roasting festival run by some people that come from the same place my Welsh ancestors did. We did that one year an it was a great Christmas kick-off.

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So I am thinking of someplace not too far away that just gets us out of town. We will go the day after Thanksgiving as a part of Jim's birthday celebration and the 4 day weekend.

While we are home we have a hard time getting to a movie. For weeks we have been planning to go out to see "The Secret Life of Bees"tonight, but we are making campaign signs instead. Oh well, I can think about our romantic get away as I peal and stick plastic lettering~it will be quite reminiscent of last night actually! Not exactly long enough ago to feel nostalgic but for a good cause the effort goes on....

Lest it all be for naught... PLEASE VOTE FOR JEFF ADAMS ( And don't forget Brandon Woodruff for President) on November 4th!

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flickr**paulandjudy's photostream
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Pumpkins Galore

One of the things that use to drive me batty about my mom when she was around my age was that she would just jump in the car and go what I called 'gallivanting'. She use to run to Longs, go home and then run out to the bank and come to our house for awhile, then go home...it was just plain weird to me. I use to wonder how she could stand not having tons of things to do that were worthwhile to keep herself sane. In my mind worthwhile translated to doing, doing, doing for everyone else within a ten mile radius.

Because I was in the summer of my life, I had no concept of what autumn would be like. I was so busy with family and kids, carpooling, housework, working outside our home, etc. that it never even occurred to me there could be choices in my life someday about how I would choose to live my days.

Back then there were no real choices....I just kept at it 24/7. Oh, I could change up my routine but why, really? The laundry, carpooling, Church stuff, cooking and cleaning still had to be done. There was always that blanket of exhaustion, and rarely time to do anything for yourself.

I loved that time in my life, don't get me wrong. I know I was engaged in the most important work I would ever do. And there was lots of joy, lots and lots. I am just saying the routine didn't have many options in those days.

The opposite of all that is true of the autumn of your life. You do have a chance finally to do the things you love and are interested in and still keep a home and family in tact. You can still serve a lot and the best part of that is, you say when and how. Personal enrichment is something you get to do, and again it's when and how you want to do it. It is a time of wonderful freedom and opportunity and I love it.

I know I am so much happier now that I was 10 years ago. You still have lots to do and those to do lists never end, but the beauty is you can just do it another day if you wake up and see that it is a beautiful day and you should take some time and get outside and capture it on your digital point and shoot. So that is what I did today and the carpets can wait until Monday. You won't care, will you?

I totally get what mom was doing now and I wish I'd have understood it better then. She was just taking her time and doing her own thing~what a novel idea! She was enjoying her life and relaxing for the first time ever. I sure miss her and what I could learn now that I know what to ask her.

So here are my pumpkin patch photos. Maybe when you are in the autumn of your life you can go take some for someone else to enjoy while they are busy doing the mommy thing!

Mums the word!

Gourds galore!

Love the tiny ones!

White Pumpkins for Bella

This is for Lee!
The bats, not the witches!

Lovin' the sunflowers

A real Pomegranate Tree! It has been years
literally since I have seen one of these.

This guy got a little carried away with him pumpkin purchase!
As I was walking by I heard him counting
them...78, 79, 80, 81. OK then!

He has the exact same van we do, by the way so my first thought was to play a trick on Jim and show him the photo and ask him to empty the car for me. But he has a different sense of humor than I do so he'd probably just say, huh? He's so (painfully) analytical.

So I am sure Jim will be thrilled that I only came home
today with one pumpkin! He is so far behind on reading my blog
that he probably won't even know about it until Christmas!
Love having it right here on my computer desk!
Jen, look familiar? I Love it!

Amen, Brandon!

I don't know about you but this whole election thing has me exhausted and we don't even watch TV. I can only imagine how the rest of you are feeling. Yikes!

For well over a year we have been bombarded with all this stuff until I have pretty much had it. This is like dating so long you are over it before you get married. This is like chewing gum so long it becomes tasteless, harder to chew and impossible to swallow. This is like the "won't take no for an answer" sales guy that has a 'yeah...but' at the ready. It reminds me of an annoying rash that you try to ignore because you know if you pay it the least bit of attention it will never go away. Scratching it always makes it worse. Obama this, Mc Cain that, Palin, Biden, Joe the Plumber...Enough already!

So in light of all that ranting, I have finally made my decision...I am voting for Brandon Woodruff for President of the United States! Check out his new candidacy and platform here.

And he is such a Babe!
Love the powdered wig...let's get back to the basics!*

Just think, we can say we knew them when.....! Laura will make a lovely First Lady too!

Oh and just in case you wanted to know...he and I are the best of friends..he has me on his blogroll and that is proof positive enough for me and my vote. I am endorsing this brilliant man today! And he like babies and loves his wife (only) and he can teach the new math, and he loves football, what else really matters?

*photo belongs to Brandon and is used without permission~
I am sure he won't mind a bit~buddies are like that!

Halloween Has Arrived at Our House

I don't know what the problem is with me this year but I am very slow about getting my Fall decorations up and running. Although I am not a big fan of the gruesome, spooky aspects of Halloween, I do love autumn with a passion! So I am happy to finally have a few things out to enjoy for the next several weeks.

My tiny acorns from Zachery & Aynslee!
My favorite and only new thing this year for the season!

Which Witch Do You Like?

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My friend, Laura, has a great post this morning if you love Halloween and witches, check out her cute photos from Gardner's Village in Utah.

Remember when I was telling your they have the best shopping in Utah, well they also have the best activities for kids as well. Gardner's Village has lots of fun things for kids to do like feeding the ducks for the little ones, a petting zoo and Shetland pony rides for the bigger one. There are some great restaurants there and lots of fun shops with unique things at reasonable prices. You can see a virtual tour of this fun place right here.

* by maytevidri