I'm Getting Out of the Habit

My posting has become increasingly sporadic over the past couple of months. There is certainly plenty of material to blog about, except when I sit down to my laptop to do it my brain goes wholly blank. And I can't even do a decent blog post tonight because it's late and I still need to work on my Sunday School lesson for church tomorrow (which is more like a priesthood/missionary prep class thanks to the gender composition of the class, but hey, therein lies a blog post so I'm not going to get into that now).

I have found a couple of things that have particularly caught my attention recently, though, so I'll just give you a teaser here. One is a book I've been slowly reading since Justin gave it to me for Christmas. He finds the most interesting things for me to read, non-fiction and fiction that I would never have thought to try. Sometimes it turns out to be something I don't get into, but mostly he finds the most interesting reads. This one, called Cooked by Michael Pollan, distills methods of cooking into the four elements (fire, water, air, and earth) and then the author talks about both his experiences in learning how to cook a specialty in each area as well as the history, politics, cultural mores, and scientific research pertaining to each. It might sound a bit dry, but he's long on the stories and interesting details that keep it moving along. I'm almost done reading it. It's also given me a lot to think about and impetus to try some of the recipes he includes (I will be passing on brewing my own alcohol, however!). There are some blog posts to share about this book and what it's gotten me thinking about.

The other subject that has caught my attention particularly this week is a humanitarian project I got to participate in with my daughter this week. A relatively new humanitarian organization called Days for Girls has a months-old Utah Valley chapter dedicated to helping provide feminine hygiene kits for girls and women in Africa. The work they are doing is saving girls' lives, and it is so simple!! I can't stop talking about it with people. That's probably the blog post I'll tackle first.

And you know, there really is stuff going on around here. The regular life stuff and the big Life Stuff too. My garden is poking along, half planted. My bees seem to be happy and I probably should do another hive inspection. There's piano teaching going on, and kids wanting to go play with friends or have friends come over here. Justin is on short-term disability right now as we try to figure some things out with his health issues. And we have a missionary to get ready for the MTC and Mexico! Lots to share, actually. I just have to get back in the habit.