Photoshoot

So, this past week I have been taking an online photography class so I can learn how to use my digital camera.  Today I went out and took some pictures around the area of the little town where my grandfather grew up.  Here area few of my favorites.

Cedar Breaks

Countryside around Hatch.  I loved the look of the weathered wood out in this field.

In my class, one of the things we learned about was composition, and using lines in our pictures to add interest and direct the viewer's gaze.  I liked the looks of this fence alongside this road.

I love pictures of water.  I thought this pictures of the water under the bridge was pretty cool.

This is the same bridge, but looking from the other side.

This pictures was actually an accident.  I was planning on getting the water in the background, but the thistle turned out pretty cool.

Ok, another flower, but I meant to take this one.  I loved these wild flowers growing there by themselves.

Book Recomendations

I am an avid reader, but I can be rather particular about what I like to read.  One of my favorite types of characters is a strong lead female character.  Below are three book series I really enjoy.

Mercy Thompson, by Patricia Briggs

This is a great series if you enjoy vampires and werewolves.  The main character of the series, Mercy Thompson, is a coyote shape-shifter raised in a world of werewolves.  She works as a mechanic, but has to deal with a world full of overbearing werewolves trying to tell her how to live her life, vampires that would, most often, like to be rid of her, and various other fey, fairies, and supernatural beasties.

The books are written in first person from Mercy’s point of view, and some might find that off-setting.  There are 8 books in the series, as well as several books written in a spin-off series called Alpha and Omega.  If you are looking to start a new series, this is a great one.  For the most part, the books are clean.  There is some language, but sexual situations are at a minimal and generally not overly detailed.  Even young adults/older teenagers could feel comfortable reading these stories.

Kate Daniels, by Ilona Andrews

This is another fantastic fantasy series.  The series is set in a type of post-apocalyptic Atlanta where magic has returned and is playing havoc with the world.  Kate Daniels is a former mercenary/supernatural problem solver.  All her life she has been preparing for a confrontation with her father, the head of the People, who control the world’s vampires.  In the meantime, she gets wrapped up in the world of shape-shifters as she falls for the head of all the were-animals in Atlanta.

This series is a little darker, a little grittier.  It definitely a series meant for adults.  Language and violence are definitely more intense this these books.  Currently there are 7 books, plus one spin-off book that ties directly into the series. 

In Death, by JD Robb

This series is set in the future, and revolves around the character of Eve Dallas.  Eve is a murder detective in NYC.  Each stories in this series is relatively independent of the others, though reading them in order does fill in some of the gaps since it is assumed you know all the ensemble characters, as well as the dark histories both Eve and her husband Roarke have.

This most definitely an adult series.  Language is an issue, but sexual situations are a regular part of the storyline.  One weakness of the books I have discovered is that since JD Robb is actually a pseudonym for Nora Roberts, she often has ghost writers writing the books on her behalf, and some are definitely better than others.  There are 38 full length books out, with one to be released Sept. 2014.  There are also 9 short stories that have been printed in various anthologies.

I would suggest looking for these books on Amazon.com, should you find yourself interested.  As far as I know you can get all of them in e-book format if that is your preference.

Different Plumage

As I’m sure we’re all aware, women come in a variety of packages.  From our plumage to our nesting habits, we are all very much birds of a different feather.  I got to thinking about this topic a while back after a discussion with my younger sister.  My sister is what I would describe as a girly-girl.  She loves playing with hairstyles, makeup, clothes; the whole deal.  In other words, she likes to feel and dress pretty.  Her mother-in-law, on the other hand, is not a girly-girl.  As an example, my sister’s father-in-law accompanied her to the store one day when she went to pick up some nail polish remover.  The comment from her father-in-law?  “I’ve never been shopping with anyone who bought nail polish before.”  My sister loves getting her nails done; her mother-in-law went for the first time when my sister married her son.

Now, the rest of the ladies in my family aren’t quite as girly as my younger sister (she just has a better flair for it, and no young children around requiring her attention), but we do (mostly) care about how we look and dress.  Therefore, it was a bit of a shock, on both sides, for my sister to marry into a family that hadn’t one girly-girl in the bunch.  It was very much a mixing of disparate styles.

I don’t think my sister thought too much about it, until a rather small incident took place.  Now, ladies, we all know what it is like to find someone to do our hair that we trust and depend on.  At least, many of us do.  When we find that special connection, we are willing to make the concessions necessary to keep working with that individual.  Such is the case with my sister.  Over this past summer she was working an internship in SLC, about three hours away from her school-time home in southern Utah.  Her stylist, however, was still back down south.  It reached the point where my sister needed a haircut, but trying to make time to get back down south, especially since at the time she and her husband were sharing one car, and he was working weekends, made that very difficult to arrange.  When she tried expressing her frustrations with her in-laws, their response was to ask why she needed to go back to her regular stylist.  Couldn't she just find someone local?

 I can honestly say I think my sister was flabbergasted.  She had been going to see the same girl for a couple of years now, and would be returning to her once the Fall semester resumed.  Yes, if she was in SLC permanently she might have sought a local stylist to see, but it was one haircut to start the summer off.  And after all, you don’t trust your hair to just anyone.  Fortunately, due to a cousin’s wedding in town, she was able to get in to see her preferred stylist.

What I think I got from the second-had experience is that we, as women, need to be a little more forgiving of each other.  A short while ago I posted about how men need to treat women on a date, but I think, all too often, women treat each other worse than men ever could.  A woman’s personal style is the outward expression of her personality to only a small extent.  Think about how we stereotype each other.  Girly-girls are snobby, preppy, flighty, air-heads, etc.  Women who choose to go less girly or feminine are butch, dowdy, unattractive, etc.  What we need to keep in mind is that a woman’s worth isn’t in her clothes or makeup, it’s an inherent part of her being.  We each have in us an essential, infinite worth that no one can take away from us.  Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but our value is something that is intrinsic in each of us.

A Comedy With a Few Errors

It is once again that time of year when Cedar City and Southern Utah University join in presenting the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  I have been privileged to be able to attend the past several years, and have always thoroughly enjoyed each presentation and play I have attended.  This year, I was able to watch the company’s production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

This play tells the story of two sets of identical twins, separated at birth, which end up in the same town.  The humor of the play comes from the many miscommunications and misunderstandings that occur as not even those closest to the four men can tell them apart from their identical counterparts.  In an interesting twists on the story, this version of the play set in the story in a western background.  While I enjoyed this unusual setting, there was a bit of a mismatch to the storyline, since the original play takes place in a seaside city, and numerous references are made to sailing and ships.  Aside from that, however, I found the approach to this story worked rather well.

For the most part, the acting was superb.  The two actors playing the bondsmen, both named Dromio, quite often stole the show.  They had fantastic comedic timing, and were well-suited for the more physical aspects of their parts.  The two main actors playing the parts of the other set of twins, Antipholus by name, were also quite good, requiring only a slight suspension of disbelief in order to buy into their supposed identical looks.  However, the two main female parts were not as strong.  For the first half of the play it was very difficult to hear, much less understand, the lines spoken by the actress playing Adriana, the wife of one of the Antipholus twins.  The second half of the play was slightly better, but she was still difficult to understand.  The major female part, Luciana (Adriana’s sister) was easy to understand, but her acting was slightly stilted, like she was reading her lines rather than speaking them.  The only other issue, for the majority of the characters, was the fact that they were delivering their lines, still using the Shakespearean English, hard enough to understand in the best of circumstances, but overlaid with false , southern/western accents, which added to the difficulty in understanding everything that was said.

Overall, the play was very enjoyable.  There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and at least one scene I laughed until I cried (even the actor playing Antipholus was having difficulty keeping a straight face).  True, there were some issues with the play and its presentation, but I would have no problem recommending this production to someone looking for a fun, enjoyable evening.  I would only recommend they look up a summary of the play beforehand, so that some of those issues previously discussed would not distract from their enjoyment.

Getting the Last Laugh

As a smart, single gal in her thirties, I have come to the conclusion that dating is one of life’s cruelest jokes on single women.  I’m sure single men have their own horror stories, but let’s face it; as the one’s meant to be courted, women often come out with the short end of the stick when it comes to the dating scene.  Honestly, how hard is it for men to treat us with courtesy, kindness, and respect, even if we don’t turn out to be “the one”?

Let me start with one of my earliest experiences.  For the sake of anonymity, I’ll call the guy in this instance John.  Now John and I had known each other quite a while, having attended the same high school.  By this time, I was nearly out of college when John and I began going out every weekend.  Now, like I said, I knew John quite well, so I wasn’t overly surprised when, after about a month, he disappeared.  It was obvious he was avoiding me, and since I had no emotional attachment to the relationship, I didn’t let it bother me.  By now I’m sure some of you ladies are nodding your heads, being very familiar with this type of behavior, but my story gets better.  After about a month of not seeing John at all, he shows up on my doorstep and asks to speak to me.  He then proceeds to ask if we had been dating, and then apologizes for it.  Fortunately I was able to respond at the time the same way I do now: I laughed.  Not to his face, but as soon as he was gone.

So what was the issue?  It wasn’t like I was pushing for anything more than just someone to have fun with on the weekends.  We never held hands, and we certainly never kissed.  Yet John was so self-absorbed, or just plain ignorant, that he didn’t even realize that what we were doing was considered dating, and then he compounded his error by apologizing for having gone out with me in the first place!  In this instance, the humor was quite clear to me, but it was just the first sign of things to come in my dating life.

Following the humorous disaster that was John I’ve had other dating experiences.  Some were better than others, and then some fell completely flat.  The cosmos have introduced me to the guy who admitted on our first date how deeply in debt he was, and then turned around and was rude to my best friend, as well as the guy I could have easily fallen for, who did a disappearing act anytime it looked like we could be more than just dating buddies.  It was my latest dating disaster, however, which has taken the cake.

I met Dan online, and we hit it off enough that we started texting.  I won’t give the details, but I’ll just say Dan had some pretty hefty baggage, but he was mostly upfront about it, and I was willing to work with what I had.  And then came that terrifying first date.  I was expecting fun and flirting; what I got was an unwanted psycho-analysis session.  Dan broke down what he saw as my “issues,” and then tried to convince me to give him an emotional declaration so that he could “solve” them.  By the time I kicked him out of my vehicle, I was so mad I was shaking.

I have nothing against the idea of dating; it’s a necessary step in the courtship process.  Even if nothing serious develops, it can grant two people an afternoon or evening spent enjoying one another’s company.  What both sides of this equation need to remember, however, is that there is a person on the other side; a person with thoughts, feelings, and ideas of their own.  As with any interaction with others, the best advice I could offer is to follow the golden rule.  Treat your date with the same courtesy, kindness, and respect you would like to receive, and maybe we can turn life’s cruelest joke into our biggest laugh.

Preschool Lessons

Things I’ve Learned as a Pre-school Teacher: Boys and Preschool

If anyone was ever to ask me if I thought preschool was a good idea for their little boy, my answer would have to be a solid maybe.  But, some might argue, you’re an early childhood educator.  Aren’t you supposed to value the benefits of early education?  And I do; just not for everyone.  You see, I’ve worked with a lot of children, and a good majority of them have been boys.  And the thing I’ve learned about little boys is that they are little boys.  On the whole, that means lots of energy, lots of movement, and lots of play.  Parents who are looking to put their little boys in preschool need to take a couple of elements into consideration.

1.        Is your child a Captain Kirk or a Mr. Spock? 

Little boys, just like all of us, come in a variety of flavors and personalities.  Some are sweet, some are shy, and some are sassy.  Is your child a follower or a leader?  Does he enjoy the company of other children, or does he march to the beat of his own rock band?  Knowing your child is essential to making the best match for him and the preschool you choose.

A boy who is more interested in running and moving than reading and drawing is not a good match for a program that focuses heavily on structured learning activities.  While some structured learning time is important, the child that needs movement and action is not best suited to this type of environment.  Not only will he not gain as much, but you will grow tired of the daily reports that little Johnny just could not sit still.  You would do best to look for a program that focuses on learning through play and child-centered learning.  Don’t think that just because playtime seems to make up a large portion of the day that the children aren’t learning.  A quality center knows how to make these seemingly chaotic scenes into golden learning opportunities

On the other hand, if your child loves having a routine, and gets disturbed when that routine is thrown off, then a more heavily structured learning environment is probably a fantastic fit for him.  He will thrive in a setting where the same activities happen every day at the same time.  A program that allows more freedom not only will not appeal to your child, but will be detrimental as he flounders in the apparent chaos and free-flowing environment of such a classroom.

2.       Pre-Law or Play-date?

Another element you must consider is just what you, as the parent, looking to gain from having your child in preschool.  Are you looking for a preschool that will have your child ready for Harvard or Yale, or is social interaction what you value most?  Do you want a school, or a childcare center?

I had a parent in one of my classes tell me her son loves to come to school because he doesn’t get to play with other boys at home.  While I was glad this particular child enjoyed coming to school, I wanted to point out to this mother that our school focused very strongly on academics.  At once some of the issues we were having with this student became a little clearer.  This was a mother who was focusing on her son’s social development and interactions, while we were attempting to keep him centered on his academic development. The result was a slight mis-fit between school and student.

Don’t get me wrong; most parents who put their children in preschool want then made ready to succeed in the classroom.  However, some parents find that more important than others.  I would suggest, before selecting a preschool, that parents take the time to make more than one visit to the school.  If possible, visit at different times during the day so you can see what kind of environment the school fosters.  Make sure you ask during the tour what kinds of activities and schedule the school encourages.  If possible, you should talk to some of the teachers, preferably one-on-one, about the classroom environment.  Overall, make sure you spend enough time in the school to ensure you get a feel for whether it is a program that matches what you want from a preschool.

Finding the right preschool program is not easy.  Not only do you have to balance location and cost, but you need to make sure you are making the right choice for your child, particularly if you’re the parent of a little boy.  Don’t take this the wrong way, because I love boys.  Most often, my favorite students are boys; I love that mischievous sparkly they get in their eyes when they are trying to get something over on you.  But a mismatched boy and preschool program makes everyone miserable.  As a parent, you want the very best for your child, and that means taking the time to ensure that he’s in the learning environment that is best for him, and it’s a relationship that cannot be forced.  However, if you take the time to figure out the best program for your child, then sit back and watch the magic happen.