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2012 Reading Challenges

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I didn’t sign up for any challenges in 2011, so it’s time to go crazy again!  Here are my goals for the year-wish me luck!

 

Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories:

  1. A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title
  2. A book with something you’d see in the sky in the title
  3. A book with a creepy crawly in the title
  4. A book with a type of house in the title
  5. A book with something you’d carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title
  6. A book with a something you’d find on a calendar in the title

 

The challenge is to read your name in book title first letters, ultimately spelling out your name: SUSAN

 

 

Pike’s Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Vancouver: Read 25 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Ararat: Read 40 books from your TBR piles/s
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 50 books from your TBR pile/s
El Toro: Read 75 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Everest: Read 100+ books from your TBR pile/s

(I’m signing up for Pike’s Peak, but hoping to climb higher)

 

 

Read TWELVE (12) mystery & suspense novels in 2012

 

 

Brian returns

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Brian returned from the California Carlsbad Mission on Tuesday and we met him at the Salt Lake airport.  It was so great to see him, especially for Mark who hadn’t seen him since he left on his mission in May, 2008.  So happy to have him home for the holidays!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating

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So I’ve been slightly stressed because I want to have Christmas all done before our missionary comes home THIS TUESDAY! 

But in between all the stress, we’ve enjoyed some holiday fun.  We went to Celebration of Christmas by the BYU combined choirs & Philharmonic Orchestra at the beginning of December.  It’s always wonderful and is a great start to the season.  They had some really beautiful arrangements that just made me sigh.

I sang in the Alpine community Christmas concert last Sunday night, conducted by Marvin Payne, and got to sing with a bunch of my friends.  We had some lovely music choices and it really made me feel in the spirit of the season.

Tonight I’m sitting in the LDS Conference Center waiting for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert to start because we were lucky enough to get tickets. We walked around looking at lights on Temple Square after eating at Crown Burger, so it’s already been a fun evening.

Tomorrow we are at the Alpine Christmas show to see Todd McCabe & April Moriarty & friends, so that will be fun, too.

Monday is the Christmas book club lunch when I get to see my pals.  Can’t wait!

So it’s been fun with more to come.  Mark came home from BYU on Wednesday, Brian comes home on Tuesday, and let the party begin!

November updates from Elder Brian

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11-1-11
So, I am really excited about what is going on here.  I have been resorting to prayer, and counsel from leaders to know what the best path to take is.  We have been seeing tons of miracles too, in spite of everything, so that has been awesome.  I feel that I have finally figured out what true faith is and how to REALLY use it.  It is sweet.

11-8-11
District meeting, and I gave a really sweet training on miracles and faith.  It was one of my favorite trainings that I have given on my mission I think.  It was really powerful.  I called it, “Faith: Go Where the Miracles Are”.  It was sweet.

11-15-11
Miercoles:  We woke up at 5:30 to get ready for zone conference.  My last one.  I played piano, and President came over and whispered in my ear, “Elder Carey, we are extending your call for 18 more months”.  Haha.  They are really stressing out that there is no one that plays piano in the mission.  The conference was powerful.  It was strange being the oldest there.  Later Pres. used me in a training (on the fly), to come up and improvise some songs.  I had to play the same song different ways, it was an analogy for teaching.  After the training, the Assistants wanted to take video of me playing piano for some project that they are doing.

11-22-11
This week was the BEST week of my mission!  Really, it was. It was the best experience of my entire life.  You can’t put a price on missionary work.  I am so happy, the happiest that I have ever been in my entire life.

11-29-11
Thursday:  Thanksgiving!  It was so weird, because last year’s Thanksgiving seems like it was yesterday, and there we were celebrating it again.  Weird.
Saturday:  Rode our bikes down to Vista Village and did some really good contacting.  While we were there a lady contacted US and asked for a Book of Mormon.  For some reason, the only Spanish copy that we had was mine, this copy that I have been using for months, and I had been marking a certain way.  At first, I wanted to say that we would just come by her house and give her a new one, but she was leaving and getting on the train and it was pulling away, and so I just felt prompted to give it to her.  It is a pretty worn copy, but hopefully she will appreciate it.
So yeah, that was my week.  It all went really good, and it is really exciting!  Time is FLYING BY SO FAST!   I can’t believe it.  Missions are way too short.

Adventures in mentoring

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So I’ve recently become an unofficial reading mentor to some girls in my neighborhood and it has been fun and satisfying.  I posted earlier about my involvement with the Utah Women and Education Project, and one of the research outcomes showed that a young woman with a caring adult who is also a female college graduate will be more likely to attend college.  So I’m putting research into practice. 😉  Right now I’m trying to come up with a perfect Christmas gift for each one and that has been a very interesting experience.  I had no trouble deciding on the first and after mulling over the second for two weeks and re-reading a book to make sure, I’ve decided on her gift.  But the third has been tricky.  She is a young teen and wants to read some mysteries but her trip to the library with her mom yielded adult mysteries that the mom thought inappropriate.  So I figured I’d give her an appropriate young adult mystery.  Merry Christmas!  I thought of one and started re-reading it but found a mild expletive around page 60 that I’d forgotten.  So no go with that choice.  I racked my brain for days and finally Googled some young adult mystery lists for inspiration.  I found several possible titles that seemed to be repeated on all the librarian’s lists so I headed to my local library to do some research.  I ended up coming home with a stack of nine YA books, only two of which I’d previously read.  Scott looked incredulously at the stack and asked me if they were to solve my problem and did I plan to read all those in the next week?  Ha ha……then he reminded me that I was already feeling stressed about all the stuff I needed to to do, like finish the half-decorated tree in our living room.  Yeah, right.

I started on the stack, glanced through one that I’d read and saw language I’d forgotten, glanced through the other I’d read and wondered why it was on everyone’s mystery list and now I was down to seven.  I discarded another as boring-seeming and was left with six.  Two were from a series and a cursory glance found language so those were out; two others were from another series and I found an extended passage detailing a keg party with lots of drinking so those were out.  What’s up with these novels?  Now I was left with two.  I was really frustrated and Scott asked me, “Haven’t you read any other YA novels you could give her?” Well, yes, but I want to give her a mystery since she’s interested in that right now.  I make my life hard.

I need someone to write clean and absorbing young adult mysteries for teens with strong characters, preferably female.  Who’s up for the challenge?

In the meantime, I’m reading frantically before making my Amazon order……