Heaven Scent, another good book

Life gets so busy there's no time left over for things like keeping my blogsite bursting with news, comments, and fun things.  Sorry.  I have done a fair amount of reading lately, and want to pass along my reactions to another good read. The title intrigued me, and I had to find out why.  I've never heard or read about how heaven smells. I'm pretty dense on some things, but as I think of it, I suspect that maybe it's not only sight and sound and touch that identifies things, or people, but most of us, even babies, also smell.  If someone also wears one favorite perfume, or scented lotion, that's clinches identity, since perfume doesn't smell the same on everybody.  As far as that goes, every body oder could be as different as a fingerprint.  So, I had to read to find out.  It was worth the search. 

HEAVEN SCENT

            Rebecca Cornish Talley  *  *  *  *

Liza Compton remembers a great life with her younger brother and parents, before her father became a law partner in a new firm, moved the family to an expensive home in stylish Aldrich Heights for Liza’s senior year in high school.  Though her mother defended her father’s transfer of loyalty from his family to his work, everything seems to be going downhill for Liza, except for basketball.  She loves the sport her father taught her, the only thing wherein she feels in control.  She makes the last two free-throws to win the state championship for her team, but is still devastated because her father breaks his promise to be there for the game.  Again, his law practice is more important. 

            Kyle Reynolds, is Liza’s only friend outside her basketball teammates.  He is Mormon, and invites Liza to a ward luau to which she must come if he beats her in a one-on-one game of basketball.  He wins.  Things should be getting better, but they don’t, until Liza seems to have lost everything in her life that had any importance.

            Liza’s father comes across to me as merely a shadow of a man.  I fully accepted his devotion to his law practice, because I had been so startled by friendly warning one speaker gave at my own son Wayne’s graduation from ASU’s law school. He claimed legal work and research can easily become so fascinating and demanding that it consumes the whole being to the exclusion of family.  Only constant self control gets a good lawyer home to spouse, children, and life outside the office or court room.  I got the impression this speaker believed law was the only profession  quite so enchanting. 

Nevertheless, Liza’s father’s actions and comments seem too terse and repetitive to arouse any feeling for him as a person, until after tragedy changes his actions.  Even then, he claims his withdrawal from the family is evidence of his love and caring.

            Still, this book kept me awake all night, until I finished it.  I’d just like to have been shown more body language along with the father’s defenses, especially in the early part, which would make him more than just a paper father.  But maybe that’s just me.

 I highly recommend this as a good book.

My Knitting

     I've often wondered when and where knitting first began, so just now I stopped to google it.  The simple answer is, nobody knows.  It is supposed that it started in the 6th century, but maybe not until medieval times. 

     I do know when I first learned to knit.  My mother taught me when I was about eight years old.  I remember she unraveled an old, red, worn sweater and I proceeded to make a scarf for my brother Don, three years my senior.  I thought I was pretty hot stuff as I knit away in garter stitch.  My  biggest trouble was that I knew so little that I couldn't always tell if a bunch of strands was only one stitch or if it were two or three.  Hence my finished scarf had enough curves to vie with the most voluptuous woman around.  My brother utterly refused to wear it.

     For a brilliant woman (a fact of which on rare instances I perceive a hint of proof) it's amazing to me that it took me half a century to realize snug, smooth knitting stitches both look and wear much better than loose uneven ones.  I blamed my untidiness on my continental, or right-handed, knitting style. I'm getting better.  The holes in the dish cloth I happen to be napping over in the above picture are there on purpose for the design.  

     My mother-in-law taught me to crochet, but that's another story.  Between the two, I've finished and given away many times more articles than I have ever written and edited, yet I claim to be a writer. 

     There just might be another someone out there who's weird enough to have taken a challenge to stockpile enough hand-knit or crocheted dish cloths to give one to each and every person who is kind enough to attend my funeral.  I just don't know how many that will take.  However, I'm optimistic (and have lots of relatives) and already have about four hundred sixty tucked away and waiting. Enough where I've at least slowed down. Crazy?  Of course.  But it's a fun challenge.  It also gives me a false sense of comfort -- of achieving busyness when I don't really want to clean house, or write. 

Free Time? What's That?

I loved Cindy's post on color and free time. One hallmark of a good writer in both prose and poetry, or so I've been told, is the ability to encourage readers to think. It may be easier to write, and very tempting, but didactic composition has a tendency toward being too preachy, and is lack of choice is apt to turn readers away. Of course it depends on who's writing, but it still stands. Everybody does not react positively, even, or especially, to prophets. However, the greatest example, Christ himself, taught in parables, multiladen with food for thought. Cindy's blog last week took me into paths I didn't expect to take. I'm not going to re-quote it here. If you found this, you can find hers. She did indicate that black (the title of this blog) was to be avoided, because we all need free time. I agree with the concept.

However, being rebellious, I chose to color myself black, that svelte, slimming, sophisticated color. Why? Because all those lovely things on her free time list have often made their way to my 'to-do' list at some time or other. When I take too long and get too little done, it's not free time I've used, it's time stolen from something else -- often sleep. Nothing is free. We barter for our 'free' time with forfeiture of other joys or goals we might have chosen. I no longer choose some of Cindy's colors. I seldom watch TV any more, nor sip sodas, and I prefer to drink my water un-iced; I hardly ever go to a movie, but I do put a tape or DVD on now and again. I schedule reading scriptures, fiction, non-fiction; writing is definitely on my list; I schedule shopping trips whenever it's necessary; and exercise is usually the last item crossed off on my list. I'll talk forever on the phone, but seldom look up a number and dial a friend, I've never quite finished any one day's to-do list, and napping always takes me by surprise. Now, if you had "knit, crochet, or other handwork" assigned a color I'd take that. Or a color for Sudoku. The real trick is to like what's on the list. Since for some reason or other we've chosen what to do, or what to list, then we surely want to at least have it done. That's reason enough to decide to like our choice and gladly get at it -- unless we can assign, pay, or talk someone else into doing it for us. Since everything on the fun list could be allocated as scheduled time, and since we're all given 24 hours a day with a hint that we're accountable for every moment of them, I ask again: "Free time? What is that?" Can you see my tongue in my cheek?