My Conversion to Artificial Christmas Trees aka Our Christmas Miracle

Christmas trees have always been a central part of the Christmas celebration for me.  For most of my life this tradition has involved going out and choosing a fresh tree and bringing it home to cover it in carefully collected (with help from my mom) Christmas ornaments.  Even when I was a single girl and had a large enough apartment, I stuffed a fresh Christmas tree in the trunk of my car and prayed I'd make it home with it and my car, still intact.  I've always been a little bit of a snob in my preference for fresh Christmas trees.

This year that changes.

For the second year in a row Tracy and I, on my part painfully, decided to forgo a Christmas tree largely for financial reasons.  It's not that we're in trouble or anything, but with going to Boise for Christmas and a few other factors, we've chosen to go without one.  For me this has been traumatic, and I have not born my grief in noble silence (yeah, noble silence is not a quality I possess).  I told several friends and family members the story of my Christmas tree dilemma.

Someone really listened.

When Tracy and I arrived home from Boise tonight there was a lovely fully-lit artificial tree waiting by our front door.

After finding it a home in our living room and alternately bawling and laughing for a half hour I'm left with two particularly joy inducing revelations:

1) There are so many loving, thoughtful people in my life right now that I can only guess who might have done this for us.  That's how blessed we are in the family and friends department.

2) This is one artificial Christmas tree that will never seem less than the true embodiment of the Christmas spirit,

And finally, most importantly, in hopes that whoever did this might read this, or at least might hear about it -

THANK YOU!!!!

The Baking Demon

Hmmm...maybe I really am finally conquering the baking demon. Not only have I know successfully made chocolate chip cookies three times but  I did a totally weird experimental recipe tonight, because I had the stuff and needed to take a dessert to a church thing tomorrow ... and it's actually pretty darn edible.  Yippee!

Ah...the Rollercoaster

So I've been in a process of applying and interviewing for a job at Green River Community College in Auburn, WA.  It was a job I really wanted and thought I was a good fit for.  I found out today that the job came down to me and one other person, and they went with the other person.  The e-mail they sent me turning me down was possibly the nicest rejection I've ever received, in fact they made it clear that if I lived in the area or ever ended up in the area, they would love to have me as a adjunct.  It's always hard to come so close to something you think you really want and then have it not work out, but at the same time, overall, it was an amazingly positive experience.

The Last Big Hurdle

Graduate school has been a hard road, there's no doubt about it.  In fact I told a professor today that if it hadn't been for his class I might have quit during my first semester at the U.  Along the way I've met some amazing friends, and worked with some truly awesome faculty members...and today was the last truly stressful day of my grad student life.

My dissertation is defended.  And though there's still some revising and bureaucratic university stuff to do, in May 2013 I will be Dr. Jenel Cope.

Dissertation Defense Draft

So I don't know whether to be relieved or terrified, but I just sent the defense draft of my dissertation off to my committee. If all goes well I'll be defending it on November 15.  Wish me luck!!!

Things I Vow Never to Do in My Own Fiction

So this is basically a list of things I'm pretty much sick of seeing in books, television and movies, and my reaction to that is to make my own solemn vow, here and now, never to stoop to them in my own stories.

I Vow to Never...

1. Give a character amnesia. Temporary addlepation from being shot or hit in the head is one thing, but total, or near total, amnesia as a plot device is getting old.

2. Bring a character back from the dead.  This doesn't include the zombie, ghost, vampire category, since they're still dead, they just manage to be interesting even when dead.  Not that I'm planning to write a vampiric-zombie-ghost story or anything, I just want to keep my options open.

3. Create a hero who must leave his love interest and/or friends "for their own good" because his life is oh so dark and dangerous.  Seriously, I hate that.  Suck it up and trust your people already.

That's all I can think of for now, and if any of you ever catch me doing any of these in my own writing you have my permission to burn my prose in effigy. 

One Draft Down

Sent my dissertation conclusion off to my committee today.  Yippee!  I may actually finish this someday.

2 Quick Lists

5 Things I've Been Happy About this Week
1. Tracy made dinner last night and it was yummy.
2. My Young Women Counselors are awesome and remember things I forget.
3. Gorgeous, gorgeous weather
4. The discovery of Pinterest
5. Getting to read Shannon Hale's Palace of Stone

5 Things I've Been Grouchy About this Week
1. At least two bacterial infections, one of which makes me dizzy
2. My inability to finish my dissertation conclusion
3. Garden snails (GROSS) that are eating our tomato and cucumber plants
4. The fact that there are only 24 hours in a day
5. That though I have an appliance called a "dishwasher" it doesn't actually do the dishes for me :-) 

A Good Day to Be A Historian

A few weeks ago I got invited to attended a luncheon with Pulitzer Prize winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.  I assumed a bunch of graduate students were invited, and I accepted the invitation with only the passing though of  "She's actually kind of famous, for a historian, that would be fun."  In the back of my mind I knew it was connected to a conference they are having tomorrow on Women in the LDS Church, but I didn't really think about it.

So I show up today to discover that am I one of only a fairly small number of students that got invited, and in addition beyond this amazing historian (who I was impressed with, she managed to be gracious even when skewering people) this small group also included Church Historian Elder Steven E. Snow.  Elder Snow handled a difficult question with such humility and tact, while still being absolutely true to the gospel, that it made me delighted to be a member of the Church.  I was a little star struck and am still not entirely sure why I was lucky enough to be invited.   I even got to ask a question!

I also got to reconnect with one of my grad school buddies whom I look up to and who has meant a lot to me over the years. 

Beyond the sheer amazement I had at being in a room with those people, the discussion was extremely interesting and relevant to a number of things I care about, both as a historian, an archivist and as a Mormon woman.  It was one of those days that reminded me why I went into history in the first place. 

High Speed Warp and Awesome People

Yeah, that title is redundant, but it's an accurate reflection of the last two weeks.  I've been finishing a dissertation chapter, prepping to teach a class of 165 students, getting used to a radically different and time-intensive church calling and trying to remind myself to breath.

Thanks to several of these things (which are all blessings by the way) and a few extra not-so-fun things I woke up really out of sorts today and a bit taken aback that I would need to face 165 undergrads who didn't really want to be in my class and somehow make history interesting for them (while simultaneously scaring off the perma-slackers) -  honestly I wasn't sure I could do it.

Just as I was starting to freak out a little I got a short but sweet text from my Mom, who is being particularly heroic herself these days, and I remembered some supportive things my Grandma said to me last night on the phone.  They made me think, "Yeah, I can do this."

Then for the last hour I've been fielding finicky start-of-the-semester e-mails and was once again overwhelmed.  Hoping for a virtual breath of fresh air, I got on a friend's blog only to discover that she said some really nice things about me. 

Plus I had super-positive texts from Tracy and another friend which kept the day going as well. 

They always say Heavenly Father doesn't give you more than you can handle, and that's true, but only because I think He also gives you people to help you handle it.

Answering Questions about the Church

I absolutely love this article from the Church about how to answer questions about the gospel.

http://www.lds.org/church/news/answering-questions-about-our-faith?lang=eng

 I especially love the advice to have a two-way conversation instead of lecturing and of tailoring your response to what people want, i.e. don't give them an hour lesson when they just want to know what "stake center" means.   I always tense up at the idea of "missionary work" (because I don't think I'm very good at it)  but I love the idea of focusing on having conversations about the things that are important with people that you care about, because that's how you build good relationships anyway.  Usually I find that if you're respectful and don't try to "pressure or coerce" as the article puts it, conversations about faith-related matters can be a great experience. 

Also, as a person who was once a less active member, I can say that the people who helped me feel ready to return to church activity were those people who actually took the time to know and care about me regardless of whether or not I attended church.  

The Olympics

So I am definitely not an athlete and not even really a sports fan these days, but I always tend to find myself drawn into the Olympics.  I've liked watching gymnastics since I was a kid, and have found an affinity over the last few days for both kinds of women's volleyball and to a small degree women's basketball.   Maybe it's the whole spirit of the Olympics, maybe it's having a built in team to root for, but whatever it is, the Olympics make me smile. 

Oh, it may also be that we have a DVR, which makes watching the Olympics a lot easier and makes it so instead of having to watch three hours every night, you can just watch the hour that interests you.

Garden Update

So along with an almost daily supply of tomatoes (YUM!) tonight we picked our first cucumber, which is also pretty good and a couple of carrots that were small but respectable.  Our little celery plants are growing like mad and we have two green peppers that are slowly getting bigger everyday.  All in all we're feeling pretty happy about our little garden.

I was a little worried about having six tomato plants, but the thing is, we LOVE tomatoes.  For us it's no hardship to eat them everyday.  I'm beginning to wonder if I'm even going to have to worry about preserving any.  Either way, hurray for tomatoes.

The Adventurers Return

Ten Great Things About Our Vacation
1. Road trips always remind me that I married the right guy. (He's that cute one at the end of the beach there)
2. Whidbey Island really is as beautiful and charming as we hoped it would be.  Deception Pass Park (it's North Beach is the picture above) is especially lovely
3. Surprises.   For example, when our second campground was less than exciting we pulled out our brochures and learned about Double Bluff Beach, which turned out to be amazing and lead to...
4.  The single best haul of sea shells in terms of variety ever,  if you want to collect shells, Double Bluff is the place to go.
5. That I got to spend time with my awesome family at my Grandma's 80th birthday party.
6. That I got to visit my friend Becky K., see her great kids, and visit with her for a nice long chunk of hours.
7. Camp fires.  Really, just staring at the flames and talking is the best part of camping.
8. The trees.  Holy cow does that island have amazing trees.
9.  Langley, WA.  It's like the Gilmore Girl's Stars Hollow only in the Pacific Northwest.  Yeah, I pretty much want to live there someday :-)
10. My mom, who, even when she wasn't home, managed to make me smile after a long road trip by leaving me cookies.

Three Things I Learned on Vacation
1.  I like camping and I like long road trips.  I don't necessarily love them in combination.
2. When a campground map shows that your campsite is close to the beach, that means nothing.  Our South Whidbey State Park site looked about 500 ft from the beach, and it was, if you dropped a rock off the edge and it went straight down.  The actually walking distance, however, was about a half a mile hike down the side of the hill.
3. The type of wood you use really does determine how easy it is to start and maintain a fire.  The stuff we bought from the State Park stores was a bit of a challenge, the stuff from their hardware store worked awesome.

Five Things I Love About Home
1. The floor is not made of dirt.
2. Going to the bathroom does not require planning, nor a hike up the hill.
3. PRIVACY
4. Knowing where things are.
5. Coming home to this (see photo below) in the garden.

Favorites A to X - Part Nine "R-X"

Pardon the marathon finish...I'm about to have a delightfully busy, relatively computer-free week.

Alas, no entries for poor lonely "Q" 

R

Movies 
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Have it memorized.  Seriously, I can mouth the words along with the characters.

Return of the King - yeah, it may have six endings, but after nine-plus hours of film making you can get away with it. 

Return to Me - This is my favorite David Duchovny role, and if that seems like a underwhelming thing for me to say see the TV entry under "X"

Roman Holiday - I really do love Audrey Hepburn, but so often I feel like she was kind of poorly matched in terms of co-stars.  This movie is an exception.  I so love watching her and Gregory Peck wander around Rome. 

Books 
Rapunzel's Revenge (Shannon Hale) - Normally, I'm not a fan of graphic novels.  I don't even own a Superman graphic novel, and I own this one.  Really, Rapunzel in a mythical wild west, that's a good idea.

TV
Remington Steele - In junior high my dream car was a white convertible VW Rabbit.  This is not a coincidence.

S

Movies 
Serenity - The reason I watched Firefly, oh and Tracy and I noticed that both Mal and Han Solo both have striped pants and routinely wear a holstered gun and a jacket.  Is this a coincidence?  I don't think so.

Star Wars - Han is my favorite character, Chewie is my second, and the Millennium Falcon is third.

Superman - Of course.

Books 
The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) - the most spiritually enlightening book I've read that falls outside the LDS canon, and it's funny. 


The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) - Just downloaded this book FOR FREE to my phone.  The world is a beautiful place sometimes.

Seer of Sevenwaters (Juliet Marillier) - This is, partially, a book about a giant shape-shifting sea monster, and yet I related to it on a very personal level.  You have to love an author who can manage that. 

TV
Sherlock - This is somewhere between a television show, a series of hour and a half movies, and a mini-series.  Honestly I'm not sure what the format is, and one of the six episodes, from my moral framework is relatively unwatchable.  However, I still found this BBC update of Sherlock Holmes to have everything the recent movies lacked.  This is definitely a textbook case of "how to update a classic."

Star Trek The Next Generation - In my opinion, quality wise, this is the best of the Trek universe.  Well, at least once Riker grows a beard and Tasha Yar dies (the first may be a coincidence, the second unfortunately, not so much).  And really Captain Picard is so entirely awesome.

Star Trek Voyager - having just said that I think Next Generation is the highest in quality, I have to say that for sheer entertainment value I like Voyager the best.  Maybe because it's the only one of the series in which I had a crush (at the time) on three different characters at any given time.  And don't worry Tracy knows this, and hopefully is confident that he has no competition, fictional or otherwise.

T

Movies 
To Kill a Mockingbird - I love my Dad, but if I could also be adopted by a fictional character, Atticus Finch would be in the running. 

The Two Towers - as I've said before, my favorite Lord of the Rings movie. 

Books 
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (Judy Blume) - this book is about having an annoying but lovable little brother.  I had three :-)  No wonder I loved it. 


To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) - the magic of such an deep and layered story told convincingly from a child's point-of-view is brilliance. 


A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute) - Apparently, in looking at this list, I'm a sucker for heartwarming World War II fiction with a romantic bent.  And this book has AUSTRALIA in it, yeah, I kind of think the guy wrote it just for me :-)

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) - call it a guilty pleasure, a flavor of the month, or just a symptom of my general obsession with the Pacific Northwest, but I couldn't honestly leave it off the list.


W

Books
Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett) - An brainy-tough-little girl witch and a brawling, drinking band of tiny Scottish-inspired men?  Yeah, it's awesome. 


Wildwood Dancing (Juliet Marillier) - a lovely version of the "12 Dancing Princesses" fairy-tale in a great Eastern European setting.

Winter Sea (Susanna Kearsley) - It's an interesting thing about time travel-ish novels, I tend to either love them or hate them.  I really enjoy Susanna Kearsley's books and I think Winter Sea is the best of them.


X

Movies 
X-Files Fight the Future - If I hadn't seen the movie, I wouldn't have watched the show.

X-Men - This movie, in part, helped inspire the current series of books I'm writing and introduced me to the awesomeness of Wolverine.

TV
X-Files - It seems appropriate to end with X-Files.  It's the most truly geeky I EVER got over a television show, at least in my adult years.  I even dressed up as Scully for Halloween once.

Favorites A to X - Part Eight "M-P"

Sorry for the delay, an awesome writing conference and a bad cold kept me thoroughly distracted, but I'm back now and ready to resume :-)

M

Movies
Maverick- Beyond the fact that Graham Greene gives one of the single funniest performances ever, and one of, in my opinion, the best portrayals of an American Indian on film.  This movie is just the perfect blend of adventure, romance and western silliness. 

The Mummy - the sequels are extremely inferior, but the initial movie with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah is so much fun.  One of my favorite lines (especially since I was working in a library at the time) is Evie's proud declaration, "I...I am a librarian!"

The Man From Snowy River - this movie probably has a great deal to do with the fact that the second place entry on foreign countries I'd like to visit is Australia.  It's also partly responsible for my desire to play the piano. 

Books
Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett) - My adviser has actually thought about assigning this book in her women and war class.  Plus it's awesomely funny. 

My Antonia (Willa Cather) - I have always kind of thought that Willa Cather is what Little House and the Prairie fans read when they grow up. 

N

Movies
National Treasure - In spite of the fact it stars Nicholas Cage and the fact that the Archivist in me almost has a heart attack every time they touch the Declaration of Independence, I still love this movie.  Plus when I start missing the D.C. area, this movie is a good way to get a fix.

Books
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - On a deeper level, I think this book does lead you to question tradition and religious beliefs, but it does so while giving room for them to still be true and still mean something.  It's another of those books that makes you think long after finishing it.

O

Movies
Ocean's Eleven -Why is a movie about thieves so much fun?  I don't entirely know.  But I do love how clever it is, and how well it juggles so many characters at the same time.

Books 
One in Thine Hand (Gerald Lund) - Before Gerald Lund wrote epic church history books he wrote this great novel that takes place during Israel's Yom Kippur War.  A few years after reading it the first time I took a Middle Eastern History class, and was surprised with how well that novel set me up to start understanding what was going on in modern Israel. 

Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin McKinley) - the first book I read by Robin McKinley and still one of those books I'd put on a list of ten I'd take to a deserted island.

P

Movies
The Princess Bride - Of course, I mean I even dedicated a blog too it once.

Pirates of the Caribbean - The first one is the best. 
 
Books
The Princess Bride (William Goldman) - Uh yeah, it's here twice.  It's one of the few times when the book and the movie version of something are equally good. 

TV
Pride and Prejudice - So is a miniseries a movie or TV?  Not sure.  Anyway, the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is something I watch at least a couple of times a year.  So much frothy British fun.

Favorites A to X - Part Seven "J-L"

J

Books
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - some classics really do deserve the title
Jenna Starborn (Sharon Shinn) - an awesome sci-fi retelling of Jane Eyre. 

TV
Jeopardy- I love random trivia, and Jeopardy gives me my daily fix. 

K

Movies
A Knight's Tale - possibly the most anachronistic movie on the planet.  I love it anyway.

L

Movies
Little Women - this is slightly sacrilegious but I honestly prefer the Winona Ryder/Clair Danes version of this movie to the book.

Books
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) - Really all of the Narnia books are good, but I don't think any of them are quite as magical as the first adventure of the Pevensie family.

Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder) - this was pure pioneer escapism for my elementary school brain.

TV
Law and Order - just recently started rewatching this show via Netflix and find it as fascinating as ever.  Though I can't watch too much of it or I start to think that everyone is out to get me :-)

Lost- I've already written several previous posts about Lost. For a convoluted show about a bunch of murderers, adulterers and other assorted miscreants it was quite uplifting.

Favorites A to X - Part Six "H-I"

H

Books
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling) - My favorite of the Harry Potter books, I
especially love Fred and George's dramatic exit from Hogwarts. 

Heart's Blood (Juliet Marillier) - a lovely moody fantasy that's a great take on Beauty and the Beast. 

Heist Society (Ally Carter) - one of my favorite contemporary young adult novels in recent years.  Sort of like a sweet version of Ocean's Eleven for teens. 

The Hero and the Crown (Robin McKinley) - honestly, picking a single favorite Robin McKinley book would be impossible for me.  It changes depending on my mood.  If I want tough, independent girl power then this is the book I turn to.  I like the Disney idea of "princess" don't get me wrong, but sometimes I think we need a few more princesses like smart, stubborn, sword-wielding Aerin in the pop culture mix.

The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) - no other novel in the world makes historical research look so adventurous and glamorous.

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Jaimie Ford) - Another gorgeous historical fiction novel that tells a great young-love story set in the extremely diverse world of Seattle during World War II.  Plus, even though it deals with difficult history it manages to do it with such warmth and hope that it never becomes to difficult to read. 

I

Movies
Incredibles - There isn't a lot of super creative filmmaking going on in mainstream movie making these days, unfortunately, but I think Pixar is an exception.  They always come up with great new ways of dealing with beloved elements and the Incredibles is my favorite example.

Independence Day - there needs to be some special sort of Academy Award for best odd couple buddy comedy, and it needs to go to Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith for Independence Day.  This is exactly what a summer action movie should be. 

On a Slightly More Serious Note

I'm a Sunday School teacher.  I teach the adult Gospel Doctrine class in our ward and have done so for over four years now.  I love doing it, and people seem to appreciate what I do. 

I always try to teach in the most positive way possible, to be as encouraging and uplifting as I can.  Yeah, occasionally I challenge myself and my class to better live a principle, but for the most part I try to focus on helping people feel the Spirit of the Lord and to feel the love, hope and happiness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.   I've wondered sometimes if the way I teach is too sunshine-y (ok, not a word but I'm using it), or that I need to be a more detailed scriptorian or something like that.  However, very recently I started reading the manual Teaching, No Greater Call for my scripture study and today in the second chapter "Nourishing the Soul"  I ran across this quote:

"Teaching that is nourishing to the soul uplifts others, builds their faith, and gives them confidence to meet life’s challenges. It motivates them to forsake sin and to come to Christ, call on His name, obey His commandments, and abide in His love."  (pg.5)

Now, I'm sure there are lots of things I can do to improve my teaching, which is why I'm studying the manual, but this quote at least made me feel like I was on the right track and also confirmed my testimony that the gospel is about love and hope. 

Favorites A to X - Part Five "F-G" and some Real Life Stuff

My Mom and John came to visit over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun!  On Saturday we went out to lunch at one of Tracy and I's favorite restaurants, Tin Roof Grill.  After that we went and flew our stunt kite for awhile.  The gusting wind made it quite and adventure to fly, but Tracy and John especially had a great time with it and were excellent kite pilots.  We were really glad they came! ....and now back to the list....

F

Movies
The Fellowship of the Ring - For anyone who knows me, this entry is not a shocker.  I think it's funny though that this movie, like Star Wars, doesn't really get interesting until the locals walk into the bar and meet the shady character who will help them finish their journey :-)

Books
Fire (Kristin Cashore) - When I heard about this novel and knew that it was about a young woman so beautiful and powerful it was a curse I was extremely skeptical about whether I would like it.  But I love it, which says a lot about Cashore's writing talent.

Fools Crow (James Welch) - This novel is told from the point-of-view of a young Blackfoot man just as white society begins to really change their way of life.  The native characters are dynamic and extremely easy to relate to.  When I read it as an undergrad it really changed my perspective on how native people should be depicted in fiction.

Forest Born (Shannon Hale) - My favorite Shannon Hale book, and that is definitely saying something. 

TV
Firefly - So again I have a hard time wholeheartedly recommending Firefly to anyone because there are content problems. One of the characters is a "companion" and I find her character extremely grating, and not just for moral reasons.  But I have to be honest and admit that deep down in my fangirl heart I am a little bit of a Browncoat.  (For the non-geeks out there, that's what Firefly groupies call themselves.)

G

Books
The Goose Girl (Shannon Hale) - Lovely, lovely, writing.  Period.  Even my Mom who doesn't really like fantasy liked this book.

Graceling (Kristin Cashore) - When I read this book I was both annoyed and delighted.  Annoyed, because I feel like this book is very similar, genre wise, to my book Rell, and I was a bit jealous that this got published and mine didn't.  But I got over it, very quickly.  I do think Kristin Cashore's books (see Fire above) got better as they went, but this book still makes the list.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer) - So if you haven't read this book, ignore the silly title and read it.  It's a stunning historical fiction novel.

TV
Gilmore Girls - Recently I was trying to decide what my favorite tv show of all time was.  The Gilmores are tied for first place.   The other first place finisher has something to do with the fact this list ends in X.

Favorites A to X - Part Four "D-E"

D

Books
Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier) - I've written about the characters from this book before, so I'll add another note about why I like it.  Marillier writes historical fantasy, in this case an era when their were still druids but Christianity was also just taking hold, and Marillier balances this really respectfully.

TV
Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman - While there were some things about this show that bugged me, especially in its later seasons, I am constantly wondering why Netflix hasn't managed to add this to their instant play offerings. 

E

Movies
Empire Strikes Back - This is my favorite Star Wars movie, probably because it's the mushiest.  Apparently when Princess Leia says, "I love you" and Han Solo said, "I know" it was an ad-lib by Harrison Ford. George Lucas wasn't sure it worked.  He was wrong.

Ever After - Cinderella has never really been my favorite fairy tale.  This was the first version of it that I really loved.

Books
Ella Enchanted (Gail Carson Levine) -There are other books by this author that I like, but this is my favorite.  And the book is definitely much better than the movie.

Enna Burning (Shannon Hale) - the grimmest of Shannon Hale's books, but also one of the most powerful.

The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde) - An impossible to describe book  Alternate history?  Fantasy?  Science fiction?  All of the above and hilariously funny.

Favorites A to X - Part Three "C"

C

Movies
Casablanca - some classic movies don't age well, but this one is definitely timeless.  I'm not even a huge Humphrey Bogart fan and I still love Casablanca.  There is a reason that half of the lines in the film have become famous quotes.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - with subtitles of course, the voice over makes me a little nutty.  I heard that this is a Chinese take on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and I can completely see that.  Plus, women who can be feminine and still action heroes - I love that.

Books
Chalice (Robin McKinley) - a stunning short novel that makes bee keeping seem infinitely magical and cool.

Christy (Catherine Marshall) - I have at times been a little bit dismissive of "Christian fiction" but I shouldn't be - because Christy definitely falls into that category, and I love it.  The story of a woman who travels deep into Appalachia to teach school and tests her faith in the process.  Plus it has a good love story, which never hurts.

Crocodile on a Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters)  - Again, I've written about Amelia Peabody before and how much I enjoy her as a character.  I didn't think I really liked mystery novels - and then I read this.

Television
Castle -  Of course :-) 

Favorites A to X - Part Two "B"

B
Movies
Beauty and the Beast - I've written before about how much I like these characters so I'll just add that this is my favorite animated film of all time.

Better Off Dead - okay, so honestly this movie is stupid, really it is.  It's essentially about a guy who is really into skiing and keeps having delusions and trying to kill himself because his milktoast girlfriend dumped him.  However, it is also hilarious and extremely quotable. ("Gee, I'm really sorry your mom blew up, Ricky")  I read somewhere that John Cusack kind of hates this movie, which made me sad.

Bourne Identity- One of the best action movies there is.  Whenever I need inspiration for action sequences in my writing, this is the movie I turn to, it's my favorite car chase ever. 

Books
Beauty (Robin McKinley) - there are a lot of good retellings of Beauty and the Beast, but this is my favorite.  I think McKinley stays true to the original tale, while giving it a fresh and lovely spin of its own.

Bitterblue (Kristin Cashore) - oh, just realized I was wrong when I said The Avengers was the newest entry on the list, as I just finished this book last weekend.  Kristin Cashore has written three books, they are all on this list, and I think Bitterblue is the best of the three.  Also, since they are traditional fantasy and on the bestseller list it gives me hope that someday my books might have a chance.

The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)- For a recent Relief Society activity we were asked to bring a favorite book to share.  I took this one.  The first time I ever thought "I want to write a book like this" I was reading The Blue Sword. 

Book of a 1000 Days (Shannon Hale) - I like that Shannon Hale took the inspiration for this fantasy world from Asia rather that Europe as is usually the case, it's a sweet, interesting story that I highly recommend.

Favorites A to X - Part One "A"

So in the spirit of giving myself something to blog about this month, I'm going to do a list of my favorites in fiction (Books, Movies, TV) from A to X.  Why A to X and not A to Z? Well, because I apparently can't think of any favorites that start with Y or Z.  This might be mind numbingly boring reading, but hey, it's something right?

A 
Movies
Aladdin - A few times a year Tracy and I have a Disney song listening fest - and almost every song from Aladdin makes that list.

The Avengers - The newest entry on my favorites list.  The more I think about this movie the more I like it.   I imagine we will be quoting it for some time. 

Books
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) - This is one of those books that works as a great adventure read and as something deeper.   I had to read it for school, and it still survived to make it on the favorites list, that's a rare event.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie) - OK, this book definitely has mature content, so I'm not really recommending it.  But I still think it's a fabulous book about teens in general and Indian teens specifically.  It's one of those books that I found myself thinking about long after it was over.  

Television
A-Team - Not all childhood favorites age well, but Tracy and I watched some of these a few years ago and they were still fun.  I remember one of my elementary school teachers being somewhat startled when I said this was one of my favorite shows.  It might have had something to do with the fact I grew up with three brothers :-)  

 

Tiny Tomatoes

We already have tiny tomatoes on the "Early Girl" plant.   I am extremely excited about this.  Tomatoes are at least 80 percent of why I wanted to plant a garden in the first place.

All Sorts of News

We had an amazingly fun birthday/anniversary weekend.  Tracy planned it as a surprise for me and it was just right.  We went to the Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall, where I learned I'm a bigger fan of Beethoven than of Brahms.  Saturday we went to the Desert Star Theater for a parody musical called The Princess Bridesmaid, to the Melting Pot for dinner (one of my very favorites), and stayed at an amazing historic inn near the Capitol Building.  On Sunday we took a drive through one of the canyons where I was able to get a small fix for my pine tree withdrawal.  It was great.

On the job front the bad news is that I got turned down for a job I really wanted in Washington, but the good news is that I was offered to a chance to teach a class for the University of Utah in the Fall.  Nice to know I am at least somewhat employable.

Spinach and Walnut Pesto

A few years ago I tried to make traditional basil and pine nut pesto and we didn't really like it that much so I sort of just gave up on pesto.  However, this week we got a big bunch of spinach from our Bountiful Basket and I was feeling adventurous so I made Spinach and Walnut Pesto with Pasta and Bacon.  I figured the bacon was a good idea because adding bacon to any recipe immediately ups the chances of it being delicious.  This time it was definitely a success.  So if the spinach in our garden goes to town I now have something I can do with it. 

Hmm..I realized their is no super hero reference in this.  Umm...it was green like the Hulk?  Or the Green Arrow?  There, that should cover it. 

Avengers

So apparently so far May is "superhero references month" on the blog.

We went and saw Avengers last night and honestly I can't remember the last time I had that much pure fun watching a movie in the theater.  It was really pretty clean, laugh out loud funny, and I was impressed with the way that the plot both made sense and gave a satisfying character journey to a pretty large ensemble of characters.  Plus, since I really liked both Thor and Captain America it was like watching a sequel to two movies I liked at the same time.

People actively clapped and cheered in the theater.  It was pretty awesome. 

Geekiness

So I'm currently listening to the Scarlet Pimpernel as my audio book and am really enjoying it.  I'm also thinking about how geeky you have to be to be enjoying a book from the early 1900s while simultaneously thinking about how much it reminds you of Batman.

We Have a Garden

Today Tracy got the dirt filled into our raised beds and this evening we planted them.  We have two 4 by 8 raised beds along the back of our house and we've planted:

-6 Tomatoes (Yeah, that's a lot. But I bought a cherry and three regular ones and then found two other varieties I wanted and Tracy MADE me by them :-)
-3 Peppers (red, yellow, green) 
-2 Cucumbers
-Celery
-Carrots
-Green Onions
-Spinach
-Basil
-Rosemary
-Dill

We will also be planting green beans when it gets a little warmer, and I planted some mint in pots because if you plant it in your garden it will apparently take over the world.   We had to cover them because tonight might get too cold, but after that we should be good to go.  

Honestly I was worried we wouldn't know what to plant, but if anything our beds are a bit crowded and we didn't even use all of our seeds.  We are really excited about it, here's hoping we stay excited and have lots of fresh veggies.

Tiny Writing Bright Spot and My Unintentional Pen Name

Shocker...I'm posting twice in one day.

The digital short story collection I'm in was the #15 bestseller for Amazon Kindle Short Stories today (they did a big publicity push).  Now I know this has almost nothing to do with me considering all of the big names attached to it, but it's still fun to know people are actually reading something I wrote. 

Oh, and if you look it up on the Amazon page my name is listed as Jenel Copeabout.  Somehow the "about" from my word count formatting got pushed over onto my last name in some versions of the table of contents.  I did try to get it fixed, and luckily it's right in the book itself, but just for the record, I'm not planning on having it as my pseudonym - though it does make Tracy laugh.

Jobs

So I ended up applying and/or interviewing for three jobs this week, in and around having either food poisoning or stomach flu.  The jobs run the gamut, one is a short-term contract position here in the valley with a small new business doing research (which I had an informal phone interview for), one is a 30+ hour a week paid internship doing document editing for the Church, and one is a full time, completely awesome sounding public history/library/archives gig in Washington.  Just hope one of them pans out so I'm not freeloading, quite so much, off of my very sweet and patient husband. 

Dark Chocolate and a Laptop

So supposedly dark chocolate is supposed to be healthy, and given that I've been trying to learn to like it.  My first experiment with Ghiradelli Intense Dark Sea Salt Soiree was a pretty good experience, yummy enough to be a treat but not so much that I wanted to eat a ton of it.  Then yesterday I bought something else because it was on sale...yeah, bad idea, all I taste is the bitterness and the stuff doesn't melt at all.  I will finish eating it but I don't think it serves the purpose I'm looking for, especially when, in solidarity with Tracy's new goal, I officially quit drinking soda this week.

Also, I got a new laptop last week.  It's about the same size, measurement wise as my old laptop but is much lighter.  I'm definitely enjoying the better sound and video quality and it's nice to constantly be worried about if the computer I'm using is on it's last legs.  My old laptop lasted us six years, so I feel pretty lucky about that and hope this one does as well.

Gruff Variations

Hey, if anyone is interested in buying the collection The Gruff Variations which features my short story and work by a bunch of amazing published writers you can buy it on Amazon at

http://www.amazon.com/The-Gruff-Variations-Anthology-ebook

This format takes requires the Amazon Kindle App  which you can download for free and use on your computer.

You can also get it in a bunch of other formats (including a regular PDF which can be printed) at Smashwords.com, that link is:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/142643

It's 7.99 and all of the money goes to two charities that are involved in getting books into the hands of kids who otherwise wouldn't have them.   Ok, pitch over.

You win some, You lose some Part II

So this round of the Amazon contest was based on scores from two expert Amazon reviewers reading an excerpt of your book.  Part of getting through the first round of the contest is that you get to read the reviews on the excerpt, and this afternoon those reviews became available.

One reviewer REALLY didn't care much for my excerpt.  After making it clear that they think nothing happens in the first eighteen pages of my book they ended the review by saying, "I don't see anything in this story happening, other than will Rell become bored and return home." Uh...ouch.

Here's the funny...and somewhat heartening thing...the second reviewer REALLY liked it.  After saying that I "excel at world building" and that I "poignantly captured" Rell's feelings, this reviewer ended by saying, "I think this is a strong example of young adult fantasy fiction. The writer skillfully gives a picture of the world, and provides some nice foreshadowing. The reader is piqued by the hints at Rell’s future and the role she may play. This was good writing that made me want to read more." 

Hopefully, someday some agent or publisher will have the same feelings that the second reviewer had.  Until then, it's enough to make me smile for today. 

Also, I made a point of sending out a query letter today.  It was my concrete way of battling that "Maybe I should just give up" feeling.  

One more thing, amid the writing drama, I did actually work on my dissertation today. 

You win some, You lose some

I have to say I knew this before I even read it, somehow, but Rell didn't make it through to the next round of the Amazon competition.   I'm supposed to get feedback and reviews from the readers who read it, which hasn't been posted yet, but it will be interesting to see what they thought.

Thanks to everybody who keeps encouraging me!

Happy

I have a great new haircut AND my short story was picked for the Writing for Charity digital anthology.   Since it's for charity I don't make any money on the story, but it's still nice that they chose it.  I am a happy girl right now.

At Last!

After a two week struggle, and lots of crunchy air dried clothes, we finally have a shiny new working clothes dryer. 

Breaking Dawn Part 1

So I've written about every other Twilight movie on my blog and though I'd pretty much like to pretend the series ended with Eclipse, last night we watched the first installment of Breaking Dawn. The fact that I didn't go see it on its opening weekend tells you that I was already a little leery of it. Yeah, it's really not a good movie. In fact it's pretty awful. Telepathic werewolves work in a novel, but a scene with them on screen was just crazy-bad.  I had to fast forward through two fairly large sequences because they were either too racy or just too grim.  I really think they could have mashed all of this gory/freaky stuff into thirty minutes and made one decent movie from the whole book, because in my opinion, the book starts to get a little better right at the point that the first movie cuts off.

Here's the good news - The personality they surgically removed from Taylor Lautner before he filmed Abduction seems to have been returned and, most importantly, Tracy's narration/horror/mockery of the movie was vastly entertaining.

Edit: I've had second thoughts about how harsh this is.  There were in fact, moments that I did enjoy, still I don't think I'll be adding this movie to my collection. 

Made it Through the First Round!

Okay, so I'm pretty excited.  My novel Rell made it through the first round of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Competition, where they cut the entries from 5,000 to 1,000.   Still a long way to go, but something to be happy about!   They announce the quarterfinalists (the cut to 500) on March 20th.

Edit: The next cut is actually from 1,000 to 250.  (There are two categories, so it's 500 total) 

All Sorts of Things

Sorry about being such a slacker on the blogging, it's been an ups and downs couple of weeks, but I think I'll focus on the positives:

-I conquered one of my cooking demons last week by successfully making chocolate chip cookies that were good.  My mom, the queen of all cookie making gave me some of her secrets and I think that really helped.  They still weren't quite as good as hers, but they were good enough that Tracy was disappointed when they were all gone.

-My writing buddy Pam started a book club and we had our first book club meeting tonight.  It was great fun.  I'm really glad I've made such good friends here, and it's great to get to know new people as well.

-We're got this fairly amazing deal on a new dryer and it's being delivered Tuesday.  (See how I made that into a positive?  Good work, huh?)

-I met with my dissertation adviser and she agreed with the plan to turn my dissertation from five chapters to four.  It means a bit more revising but it definitely will be less work overall.

And it's almost the end of February...which means winter is drawing to a close, and so far (cross fingers, knock on wood) it's been a mild winter here.   I'm definitely looking forward to spring!

Midnight in Austenland

So Shannon Hale's new book Midnight in Austenland was released on Tuesday.  I swore I was going to be good and frugal and get it from the library....

Then my writing buddy Pam invited me to go to the book launch party and signing today, and with encouragement from Tracy that I should in fact buy the book and take advantage of the opportunity I went.  It was extremely fun, Shannon Hale was gracious and funny, and it was so nice to go with a good friend. 

So I'm feeling extremely spoiled, that for the second time I've been able to chat, if even for a few moments, with one of my favorite authors and have two personalized books on my bookshelf.  It also made me grateful for my sweet husband and good friends. 

Oh, and the book is awesome! I've laughed out loud several times. 

Another Extension and Brussels Sprouts

Just wanted to let everyone know that while we don't have any long term news, Tracy's contract was extended again until mid-March.  So that, at least, keeps us going another month.

On the cooking front, last week I made roasted brussels sprouts.  We received them in our Bountiful Basket and one time on one of my research trips I'd had roasted ones that were really good so I roasted them in the oven.  They were pretty good.  Not something I'd go out of my way to buy, but nice that I was able to make a vegetable that's often spoken about with dread in an edible fashion.

Multiple Personalities

So I've always joked that I kind of have multiple personalities. To be clear I'm not claiming or mocking actual dissociative identity disorder, but I do think that I have a tendency to have personality shifts as I do different things in life.

Well, now I have some additional proof of that theory.  Apparently I can also write like multiple personalities.  There's this site called "I Write Like" (iwl.me) where you paste in a sample of your writing and it tells you what semi-famous author you write like.  Well I used a chunk of my first novel and it told me I wrote like Margaret Mitchell (as in Gone With the Wind)  and when I used a chunk from my second novel and from my blog it told me I wrote like edgy YA novelist Cory Doctorow. 

I did hope that the two novels were very different in tone, so not only is this funny, it's actually a good thing.

Chicken Pot Pie Meets Biscuits and Gravy

I'm trying to gently and frugally expand my recipe set and cooking skills, so yesterday when looking at a magazine I saw a post-Thanksgiving sandwich idea that suggested making a sandwich with turkey and veggies in gravy put on a biscuit to taste like chicken pot pie. 

Riffing on that idea and knowing we had a pretty good stash of canned chicken and biscuit mix I took the idea and made it into biscuits and gravy.  I sauteed onions and carrots in butter with some rosemary and sage.  Then I made some turkey gravy (started homemade but I threw in a packet to stretch it) and put the veggies and a can of chicken in it.  It tasted a little heavy so I sprinkled in some lemon juice and at the very end added some frozen peas.  Then we spooned the stuff over the biscuits.  Now I doubt it would win any cooking competitions, but it is yummy and fast and cheap.  Hurray!

Ray of Hope

I thought everybody would be happy to know that Verizon extended Tracy's contract until February 4th and apparently they are still trying to hire him full-time.  If nothing else it gives him a little more time to find a job. 

Nice to have some good news to share!