"This is Where I Belong"

Tomorrow I begin year 14 at BYU. I still remember my first day at BYU, walking across campus to the Brewster building to get keys to my office, my stomach filled with butterflies. I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into.  I have continued to wonder for many years.

End of first year at BYU with my mentor and friend

 When I decided to pursue a PhD, BYU was not on my radar screen.  I longed to leave the state and have a grand adventure. And then BYU  came calling. When you talk to new faculty members about how they came to join the ranks at BYU, many will tell a magnificent faith promoting event. Or some will say they were here as a student and always wanted to come back. For me, neither applied. It took a lot of prayer before I decided that I should accept the offer. I can't tell you why I did it, other than it felt like the right thing to do.

I continued to been filled with wanderlust. I spent a year in ATL, on sabbatical, and loved it. It renewed my desire for another adventure. But here I stayed.

Several years ago I saw this wall hanging as part of kitchen photo spread in a magazine (probably Southern Living-- that's the only magazine I read). So when I saw it on a trip to the East coast, I had to buy it. I toted it with me for 10 days of a bus tour.

Tonight I found it sitting beside my bookcase, collecting dust. I didn't feel like this is where I belonged so it never went on my wall for more than a few months, if that.

However, for the first time in 14 years I feel that "This Is Where I Belong." I have been reviewing my old journals. I am reminded of blessings, opportunities, and spiritual experiences. I have a list of about 15 very significant events, none of which would have occurred had I not started and continued at BYU. And most of them have nothing to do with my performance in the classroom.

I know that, as Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, "God is in the details of your life; He does the choreography." I wonder what else He has in store.

Life is good.

"Life is too Short to Waste Calories on Bad Food"

My dream job is to travel the world and be a restaurant critic.

When I mentioned this to Sandra during Christie and Chad's wedding luncheon, she told me about Ruth Reichl, former food/restaurant critic for the LA Times and NY Times. 

The next day as I was making a B-line through the BYU bookstore to purchase a new journal, I paused for a moment to see what they had displayed as "top sellers" and "staff picks." To my left the name "Reichl" caught my eye. I picked up the book "Garlic and Sapphires. The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise" and knew immediately that I had to purchase it.

That night after returning home from a Dallyn Bayles concert (which by the way was phenomenal) I stayed up much too late reading. The words on the page captured my attention within the first few sentences. I was hooked. Reading her description of food is almost as good as being there and eating it yourself. Despite having no photos at all, it is like you are right there with her eating the meal. You can picture each piece of food; each restaurant. How did I miss her all these years?

I've decided that if I am going to be a restaurant critic, I've got to start thinking about foods in more descriptive words. And that means slowing down and taking time to really savor what I am eating. The weight loss researchers would call this "mindful eating." Writing this way is not easy for me because it is the opposite of how I write for research publications in my current job-- professor, not  restaurant critic.

So where do I start? How about a review of Christie and Chad's wedding cake(s). Had I been thinking about writing a description of these cakes, I would have paid more attention and ate more slowly. But instead I inhaled one (or possibly two) pieces, and a taste of three others, during a brief respite of clearing tables. My FitBit said I had walked 12K steps that day, so I felt justified. These calories were definitely worth it.

Instead of a traditional wedding cake, Christie chose 10 cakes with 5 different flavors. Brilliant idea. She special ordered the cakes from Whole Foods. This chocolate cake with raspberry filling is on the top of my "Best Thing I Ever Ate" list. It is right up there with the gnocchi with mushroom sauce at Trattoria Marione in Florence and butternut squash ravioli at Giacomo's in Boston.

 Fresh fruit is piled on the top of each cake. Raspberries were as large as your thumb, oozing with juice, taking me back to my sister's raspberry patch in mid-July. The chocolate cake was dense, but moist, definitely from scratch; not a Betty Crocker $1.79 mix. Creamy raspberry filling separated the three layers. The outside was coated with vanilla frosting; it had to be buttercream. The frosting wasn't too sweet and it definitely did not leave a coating of Crisco in the roof of your mouth.

I may have to order one of these for our next "Single Sista's" party. We may have to invite Christie, though she no longer meets the criteria.

Back to reading.

Life is Good.

What is of Most Worth?

In April, my mom's brother passed away, leaving her the only surviving member of her immediate family. A prompting by a couple of grand-nephews who want to know more about their grandfather,

my mom has started going through a trunk she inherited from her mother. The trunk is filled with family history.

A couple of weeks ago Mom and I were talking about family history and what documents and stories we should keep. She admitted to shredding some papers that she didn't think held value and if anything might cause hard feelings with someone, somewhere. Another brother had written some memories, not necessarily pleasant, but true, and she wondered if she should keep those.

Last week I was having a conversation with my friend Ms. A about family history. She is really great at writing stories. She said that the went through her journal, picked out the most important stories and shredded everything else.  I came home, found a journal from junior high, and decided that Ms. A had some sage advice.

And then a few days ago I was reading in the Book of Mormon. Nephi said "Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men." (1 Nephi 6:6).

As a result, I've been thinking about what is of "worth" when it comes to journals and family history. 

I am about to start my 20th journal. I've joked that I want these journals buried with me. I decided that I don't have the time, or energy, to read through all those pages, pull out the important stories and shred the rest; though part of me really likes that idea.

The other part of me wonders if by only telling stories we are leaving out vital details that help us understand and know a person. For example, my grandmother married my grandfather, a widow with 3 young children. I think it was a marriage of necessity more than love. His first wife was my grandmother's sister; the two women were close. I wish I had journals written by my grandmother. What was life like? What were her feelings as a new bride and mother? I know she shared those with my mother, but my mother doesn't talk about it.

There is a story about a time that my grandmother did a lot of baking, including making delicious cinnamon rolls, while the men were out deer hunting. Grandma had to go out and do the "chores" (i.e., milk the cows) and when she got back, all the food was gone. They didn't save her "one single cinnamon roll."  Mom says "she (grandma) really felt bad that day." I'm sure she did. I just wish I could read it in her own words.

So, as I begin my 20th journal, I'm trying to decide what is of "worth" to write. Do I only write stories. Do I stop writing down my feelings, including joys and frustrations?  I am writing a separate document with my stories, mainly because I would rather have those written by me instead of someone trying to re-create my life after I am dead (that is assuming that anyone would be interested in embarking on such an adventure).  Jill's recent blog post, "How Do You Want to Be Remembered" has also got me thinking about what things I want to write down and be remembered for.

I don't have the answer.

Life is good.

Dr. T's Daily News August 6, 2013

Dr. T's Daily News

August 6, 2013

Back up Copy of Family History Documents Found. Celebration Begins.

Headline News

Last week I attended the BYU Family History Conference. The cost for me is free and I get

great ideas and valuable tips for doing family history research. One of my "ah-ha" moments this year was from a speaker who said that he liked to collect headlines from old newspapers.
Hum... What if you used that approach when keeping a journal? You just wrote down what the headline would be if your day was going to be summarized in the newspaper. Personally, I think it is a brilliant idea. I think I'll try it.

Today's headline is this: "Dr. T. learned a very hard lesson about the importance of having a backup of your computer files; she lost hours and hours and pages and pages of family history work." 

Life is still good.