Monthly Reading

As mentioned in the previous post, I'm reading the Book of Mormon this month, in its entirety. I thought, since I wouldn't have time to go through footnotes and cross-references, that it might be fun to try reading it in a way that I had never tried before. When I was in Palmyra, NY maybe 7 or 8 years ago, I was at the little bookstore/publishing house where the Book of Mormon was printed for the first time. They sell copies of the Book of Mormon that are replicas of that first set of 500 books that were published in 1830. They have no verses, no footnotes, no cross references, and the chapters are even organized differently. It reads almost like a novel. I bought on, and it has been sitting on my shelf ever since. I decided that I'd use it for this month's  Book of Mormon challenge.

It's been so interesting to me to read it, and to internalize the things I've read so many times in such a different way. It feels so much more continuous, and it flows together so well. It's also been interesting to read it as the early Saints read it. This is the way that my ancestors learned the gospel!

It's good for reading it quickly, but it's also making me seriously appreciate all the work that went into adding footnotes etc, and matching verses that match up to doctrine found in the Bible. I'm so impressed with the effort, work, and time it must have taken some very patient and well-read people. It's kind of amazing, actually. I've been loving my hour with the Book of Mormon every day, and I may just keep that up, as long as I have the time. I'll probably go back to reading my modern copy, as it has its pros, but  I recommend trying out the old format if you haven't!

*Here it is on Amazon

August

This month a few members of my family and I are doing a 30-day challenge of sorts. We all get to choose our own goals, but we being held accountable to one another, and encouraging each other to do what we've committed to do. My goals include drinking more water (3 liters/day), working out regularly, and more intensely (my new favorite app = Nike Training Club), getting all my thank you notes written (I'm overwhelmed with everyone's generosity, and because you were all so generous, it's going to take forever to write these all!*), going to bed and waking up earlier, writing in my journal, or blogging, recording my calorie intake and being more aware of what I'm putting in my body, reading at least a page of The Hobbit in Arabic (if I do that, I'll have finished it by the time the film comes out in December 2012... I know, it's slow) and, last but not least, reading the Book of Mormon before the month is out. That's 18 pages a day. A few of us are doing the Book of Mormon, and it was my sister's idea. I'm loving it so far! I just have to make sure I don't get behind... Luckily, I finished The Count of Monte Cristo last week, so I won't have anything pulling my attention away. I think this 30-day challenge will be a monthly thing, and I can't wait to come up with new goals for myself in the coming months. Suggestions?



*Some one gave us the most adorable gift. It's a pretty apron and some seashell measuring spoons from Anthropologie. Either there was no card, or it got lost. If you gave us this pretty little gift, thank you! Please identify yourself! If you know who it was from, please let me know. Thanks!

July

The carefree days of summer are drawing to a close. Kimball and I have had such a fun couple months of being newlyweds, though, and it's sad to know it's going to get much more busy soon. I've become lazy with the camera, and even the camera on my phone, so I don't have many photos to show for the fun times, but the memories really are there. 

We went camping a few weeks ago with some friends, and had so much fun! I did actually take some pictures of that experience, so please enjoy. 

Our tent was so tiny, and so perfect. 

Okay, I know it doesn't look great, and that burned spot of cabbage
looks like a nasty bug, but these are the best tin foil dinners EVER.
Cabbage, kielbasa, carrots, turkey meatballs,steak fries and so, so much
more... Seriously, SO delicious. We were in charge of bringing dinner,
and I knew couldn't fail with these little guys. 

I love getting so dirty camping. My toes were nasty and black.

Okay, our tent looks big there in the foreground... see the picture below
to see the tent to scale.

Yes, it is oh so tiny.

campy me

It took us a while to fall asleep, because we kept laughing
at how funny we looked with our sleeping bags cinched
up around our faces. 

So silly.

We have done many other fun things, and have spent time with some wonderful people, but have no pictures to show for it. We had some lovely guests from Scotland, with whom we hiked and went to the farmers market, we went to Syracuse for the weekend and enjoyed some amazing food and had so much fun with Kimball's brother and his family, we played with my family at the Roy water park, and had such a fun weekend in SLC with said family and cousins. We spent a fun evening in the canyon with friends and made chocolate peach cobbler. We went to our very own water park, which is right next door to our apartment building, attended a bunch of wedding receptions and showers, had some dear Jerusalem friends for dinner, house-warmed another Jerusalem friend's home, Kimball got a new job doing Internet security for Provo-based Qualtrics (good work, baby!) and Kimball and the guys at his other job (BYU's Computer Science Security lab) won a nation-wide hacking contest (good job, again, baby!) Such an awesome husband have I. He works so hard, and it kills me that he's working two jobs, when I can't even work one (being Canadian and without a green card... this will change in the next few months). Anyway, we have had so much fun, and we are just loving life. It feels like a vacation everyday... after Kimball gets home from work. This post is much too long to be enjoyable, but it's working as a journal for me, so I refuse to apologize. So, continuing on... Some other fun things I happen to have snapped pictures of include the following:

We made massaman (a thai peanut curry).
Yes, be proud.
It's complex, and so perfectly yummy.

I made fresh raspberry limeade, which was
just delightful. And I'm loving my little
pitchers from Brooklyn!

My new kung fu kicks

Explanation: My dear husband, a black belt kung fu master, convinced me to get a pair of these shoes. It's probably wise, since he'll be teaching me his martial arts ways. (We just finished watching "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" In every fight scene I kept asking if he could do certain moves. I'm sure he loved it). Anyway, the shoes are called Feiyues (fay-yous) and I'm not exaggerating when I say that these are the only shoes he has worn for about the last ten years, besides church shoes on Sundays, and flip flops he got for our honeymoon. He goes through about 2 pairs in a year, and always has new ones on hand. He has three brand new pairs in our closet right now, one pair he wears, and one he goes running/hiking in. They're apparently super popular in China (that's where they're from - you can see thousands of them in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies), and among ninjas.

hc, jr.

The man in the blue shirt there is none other that Harry Connick, Jr. He was in Provo (who knows why?) and we ate at the same place (Sammy's) that night. I chatted with him a bit. Nice man. As for Sammy's (we had a groupon!)... won't go there again. Good food and pie shakes, but so unhealthy. It took many workouts and much water to feel good about ourselves again.

My new favorite toy! Thank you mama!

We got caught in a torrential downpour, and we are
soooo in love.