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I’ve finished my second reading challenge of the year with a month to spare.

Themed Reading Challenge runs 1 Feb-31 July 2009

4 books with the same theme; from your TBR pile; my theme is books with a musical instrument as a major plot device

The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason: This novel was very slow-moving, but not in a negative way.  It is a  character development novel and just took its own sweet time unfolding the character.  The story was intriguing: in 1886 an English piano tuner receives a commission from the War Office to tune a miltary officer’s piano in Burma.  The novel shows how Edgar Drake, the tuner, is changed during his fascinating journey to Burma and his stay in the jungle.  He is an Everyman thrust into an alien environment and how he reacts to his situation is the real thrust of the story.  The author also includes some interesting history of the area and Anglo-Burmese relations, and technical descriptions of pianos and the art of tuning.  The ending had some twists and turns and the novel did not end the way I expected.  It is a good book, but the reader has to be willing to go along for the ride.

The Soloist, by Mark Salzman: I really liked this book.  I was drawn to it originally at the thrift store because it had a musical title and a picture of a cello on the cover.  The description sounded good, so I picked it up.  It turned out to be a quiet book that was immensely touching.  It has three strands that are all woven together to form the full picture of a man coming to grips with his past and present and weaving them together to face his future.  It is written in first person and vignettes of Renne’s past as a child prodigy are interspersed with his present as a cello teacher of another prodigy and his involvement as a juror on a murder trial.  All these stories combine to help him re-invent himself as a man and as a musician and it was an interesting journey.  His descriptions of music and playing an instrument were deep and profound and I really enjoyed his wisdom and view of music.

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett: This was a great book that explored the relationships between hostages and their captors.  The plan goes wrong and the terrorists are faced with a house full of hostages and their experience together is the theme.  It shows what people are willing to do and to forget in order to survive.  It also shows the resiliency of the human soul.  Gen, the Japanese linguist who becomes the translator, is the filter through which we see everyone else’s dreams and desires.  I liked the way music and singing became the moving passion that unites them.

The Singing Stones, by Phyllis Whitney: Ah, Phyllis Whitney.  Her novels are one of life’s simple pleasures: romantic mystery sans blood, gore, sex, and language.  What better for some mind-candy fun?  Yes, her novels are somewhat formulaic, but part of the fun is always the setting.  Her novels are set in interesting locales that often become a character themselves.  I like books with a strong setting; I guess that’s how I get to travel, so I’ve been all over the world with Phyllis.  The stones that sing are a an integral part of the story and since my theme is musical instruments, it fit right in for this challenge.

Filed under: Books, Sue on June 23rd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Brian and his friend, Becky Arnell, were selected to sing the National Anthem at their graduation.  They sang in the Marriott Center at BYU in front of several thousand people for the 2009 Lone Peak HS graduation.  He just stood up and sang and didn’t sound nervous at all.  If you’d like to hear him sing, click on the video below.

Filed under: Brian on June 20th, 2009 | No Comments »

On Friday, Scott and I attended the annual Hidden Garden Benefit tour in Utah Valley.  We try to go every year, and it benefits the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.  Each day before the tour, they have workshops that are included in your ticket price and we’ve never managed to get to one, so this year we worked it so we could attend.  They were taught by Joy Bossi , who is a local radio and TV personality and professional gardener.  She taught about edible landscapes, and mentioned nasturtiums as edible and also an attractor for pollinators.  But she said they don’t transplant well and are impossible to start from seed.  Then she asked if anyone had been successful in growing them and I timidly raised my hand, along with a couple others.  So she asked me to tell what I do to raise them.  I explained that I rub the seeds with a nail file, plant them in flats under clear plastic domes, and put them under my lights.  Then I harden them off outside and plant them in my gardens.  (Just like I do with all the other annuals, perennials, and vegetables I grow from seed each year, except the sanding.)

Well, you would have thought I was some genius gardener!  Scott and I looked at each other rather dumbstruck.  We laughed about it in the car on the way to the first home.  Later in the day, we were stopped at one of the homes by an older couple who said, “Here’s the nasturtium expert.”  So we chatted with them and gave them my “secret” to growing them.  So now you know-I am one of the few who can grow nasturtiums.  But I’ve never tried eating them.

More about my gardens:  Because Brian and I were home all week, we worked in the gardens every morning until it started raining and have made great progress.  All the flower beds except one are cleaned up, edged with rock, and newly planted with this year’s new plants, and they look great!  Perennials blooming today: roses, poppies, columbine, salvia, iris, penstemon, lamium, and catmint.

Filed under: Gardening, Sue on June 14th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

School is over because Brian graduated on Thursday, so this is the first day of summer. Brian left last night for his job at Maple Dell Scout Camp and won’t be home until Saturday afternoon. He will come home for 28 hours each weekend for the rest of the summer. So quiet here this morning as I got caught up on work on my computer. Now I’m off to represent PTA at some meetings in SLC, which is normal and doesn’t really have anything to do with summer. But here’s news: Scott and I are planning to get a membership tonight at Anytime Fitness and start our summer exercise regimen. We are changing our lifestyle as of today because we don’t have kids at home anymore. I’m hoping to get more gardening done later this week because it’s that time of year and I still have flower beds to clean out.

Filed under: Sue on June 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I’m the Mom so I can brag on him all I want, right?  This has been a busy 2 weeks as he finished up school with all the end-of-the-year concerts and banquets.  He accomplished several of his goals and was very happy with how the year ended.  Last night was Lone Peak HS graduation so he’s officially out!!!

 A partial list of kudos from the last 2 weeks, and it’s partial because I may have forgotten something:

• Lone Peak Sterling Scholar for Speech and Drama
• in the Top Thirty of graduating seniors
• Superior rating and medal for his vocal solo at the State competition
• LPHS Choir Outstanding Section Leader
• LPHS Choir Outstanding Student
• LPHS Choir Leadership Award (he’s the Chamber Choir president)
• LPHS Choir Male Singer of the Year
• Best Male Actor, “The Curious Savage”
• LPHS Principal’s Award “In Honor of Your Contribution to the Spirit of Lone Peak High School”
• LDS Seminary Graduate
• sang duet of “The National Anthem” at LPHS Graduation

Filed under: Brian, Sue on May 29th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I finished my first 2009 Reading Challenge which is:  Numbers Challenge runs 1 Jan-1 Aug 2009: 5 books whose titles have a number in them

Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices, Jodi Picoult-This was my second Picoult novel and I like her.  This one is told by five people which is why it’s a “Novel in Five Voices”.  One of the interesting things is that one character tells the story backwards so you find out the outcome of the events in the novel at the beginning and then see the events unfold through the other character’s eyes.  This was confusing at first and about a third of the way through I had to go back and re-read the first couple chapters so that I had it all straight in my mind.  But I liked seeing how each voice perceived the events in their own way.  The themes of the book include child abuse, forgiveness, and the different facets of love.  It also includes whales, apples, and a cross-country road trip.  This book does have a language alert and a couple of tastefully written love scenes.

Thousand Pieces of Gold, Ruthanne Lum McCunn-This books isn’t great literature but a fast read and an interesting one, at that.  It focuses on a Chinese girl sold by her father to a bandit, who then sells her to a brothel, which then sells her to a broker smuggling women into America illegally.  She is auctioned to a saloonkeeper in Idaho and then lost in a card game.  Her desire to escape slavery and make a life for herself in the American West is absorbing.  I realized that what I’ve read of Chinese in the West has been almost completely about men who came here to build the railroad or the mines, and there weren’t many women.  This woman’s story of her survival opened some new insights to me about life in the West.  It’s a novel but based on a real woman’s life in Idaho.  Her photographs in the book were fun to see and her life is inspiring.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini-This book was gripping and relentless.  These Afghan women endured war and brutality for years and yet still seemed to retain a portion of humanity.  There were many plot twists that I did not see coming and some hit me like a ton of bricks.  It was fascinating to read about events in the headlines from the “other” point of view and see how the Afghan people suffered under each regime and yet kept trying to survive.  This is a must-read.

Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris-This book had an interesting narrative style.  Framboise, the main character and story-teller, is a widow who has moved back to her childhood home and is trying to come to grips with events that happened during the German Occupation.  So the story moves back and forth between the present and the war as she slowly reveals the events of that time.  But the events are intertwined with the consequences of those events in the present and the past and present weave together.  She foreshadows some things so the reader has an idea of what happened but it’s very unclear until the end.  The story also includes lots of recipes and food allusions.  Interesting story of how daughters come to understand their mothers as they grow older.

Standing on the Promises, Book 1: One More River to Cross, Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray-This book had some interesting characters and stories and I had fun reading it, but it’s not on the level of the Gerald Lund historical novels.  I got a little tired of the entire narrative being in the vernacular and found it a little affected.  The research was sound and I always appreciate good research.  I’ll read the rest of the series, but I think it’s a one-time read for me.

Filed under: Books, Sue on May 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »

This is slightly outdated, but my friend had the video, so I decided to upload it. For New Year’s Eve my friends and I decided to go to “First Night” in Provo. As a part of the evening, there was a “Star Singing Competition”. Throughout the early hours of the night guests could audition, singing karaoke. Then 20 finalists were selected. I sang Rascal Flatt’s “These Days” in the preliminaries and got invited to the finals. Side tangent: Out of the 20 finalists, 4 of them were my friends and I. Then all the finalists got to sing with a live band playing back-up. This video is me singing “The Way You Look Tonight”. After the finalists all sang, they announced the top three finalists, and being in the top three of the finalists, I got invited to sing again! I ended up in third place at the end of the night and as a prize got a board game…I know, a board game. But it was still really fun. ENJOY!

Filed under: Brian, General on April 28th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

1. Apparently there’s some sort of time warp going on because we just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and Mark will have been out on his mission a year in a couple weeks.  What the??

2.  I just love a sunny day.

3. 2009 has been a real test for my word of the year, serene, so far.

4. You start your youngest in preschool in 1994; in 2009 he graduates from high school and that was it.

5. For too long I’ve been wishing for winter to be over.

6. I am not obsessed with reading; I am not!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to an evening of Star Trek: Voyager with Scott, tomorrow my plans include volunteering at the State Solo & Ensemble Festival and Sunday, I want to catch up on news with my siblings!

Filed under: General, Scott's Family on April 24th, 2009 | 1 Comment »