Little Houston is growing!

Scott and I babysat last weekend for Monique and Josh's adorable little Houston, who is a little over 2 months old now. He's up to 11 pounds now and is super sweet! Here are some pictures of our time with him. I've put in a video too in case Monique's mom wants to watch! :D Or anyone else too. He's becoming to much more aware of things!

Thanksgiving Potluck at Work

As the self appointed social coordinator, I have been planning bi-monthly potlucks for my group at work. This Thanksgiving one was very yummy - we even had turkey!

Visit to Camp Randall Stadium!

We went back to Scott's college home town for the Wisconsin Badgers vs the number 12 Michigan Wolverines. It was a tough game, but the Badgers won, bringing them up to number 25 this week. These fan are so much fun - the entire town was preparing for the game with tailgating all morning and partying all night after the game. You would see red everywhere you went, along with all sorts of Badger wear. Scott's parents helped me stay warm by letting me borrow lots of warm Badger wear and I even matched Scott's dad in our custom-made jackets! Scott's mom bought Scott and his brother matching Badger hats, and they were the hit of all cameras that afternoon - too cute! My favorite part of the game, though I did love watching the Badgers win, was the 5th quarter. The Wisconsin band is really quite amazing and after the game, it's tradition that they come out onto the field and do their thing. Their thing includes playing, dancing and just being FUN! Here are some pictures so that you can see a little bit of this fanage (my made up word).

Book Reviews

Writing about Collapse made me decide to write about some of the other books I've read over the last year since I last did a book review - so here goes!


Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has to be my favorite book over the last year. Gilbert's writing style was so good and this story even better. It's the story of a woman taking a year trip after a bad divorce so that she spent 4 months in Italy (eating and enjoying all things aesthetic), 4 months in India (praying and meditating at an Ashram) and 4 months in Indonesia (loving!). My favorite was the part in India because of the amount she learned about herself, but I have other girlfriends who have preferred the other parts. I think just about any woman (and probably many men) would love this book, so I highly recommend it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini was another wonderfully written book that tells an amazing story. Hosseini is the auther of Kite Runner, which I haven't read yet, but which has reached #1 on all the top sellers lists. A Thousand Splendid Suns is the story of two women in Afghanistan who come together under less than desirable circumstances. It tells of the ways that the people in this country have been affected by these wars, both negatively and positively and really makes you think and question some beliefs about the wars that you may currently have. I recommend this book to all women both as a wonderful story of women and the ways that they are able to live through terrible circumstances with love still in their hearts and as the story of what is going on in the Middle East through these recent times.


Jon Krakauer has been getting a lot of publicity lately with his book Into the Wild being made into a movie (which I've heard is great but have yet to see it). I haven't read that one yet, but I finished Into Thin Air a few months back and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's his true story of climbing Mount Everest during one of the deadliest seasons of all times. The way it is written keeps you constantly interested and wanting to know what's going to happen next. Even if you are not into climbing, this is a great and thrilling read.


Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons by Lorna Landvik was one book that I went into thinking that it would be an enjoyable, but pretty thoughtless chick book read. But it was a lot more than that! It's a great story of a group of women who start a book club when they are pretty young and keep it going for 30 years! The stories of these women in their lives with each of their growing and living pains brought out a lot of my own emotions and showed me a lot about my own life. It's written very well and is easy to read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't recommend this one to any guys, but definitely recommend it to all girls.
AND.... it's inspired me to finally start a book club - I've been wanting to be part of one for a long time, but I'm going to do it for sure this time. So any girls in San Diego that want to be a part of it - let me know! I was thinking of maybe starting with this book since it inspired me! :D


A really good friend of mine convinced me to read Living History by Hillary Clinton and I'm really glad I did. It's not a wonderfully written book and the transitions between one subject and another are not very smooth, but it was good for me to learn about Hillary Clinton. The sections that were full of politics and people were not so interesting to me, but her travels around the world and her own political work were very interesting. I actually didn't realize how qualified that she is to work in politics. She has done a lot, including during her law school years, her time as an attorney, her time while Bill Clinton was in office and her time as a Senator and I was quite impressed with her resume! Of course, the book is going to be written from her point of view and written so that it brings about the most positive view of her, but I was very happy to learn about her and her beliefs and views, etc. A lot of people are super opposed to her and I think you should read this book to open your eyes to what you may not have seen before!


The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho was a very interesting read and not quite what I expected. It's a simple story about a shepherd boy who travels from his home of Spain into the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the pyramids. The points in the book are pretty hidden and not at all obvious if you are just reading the words, but the point that it does pull out is really a good one. It can help us all see that our lifetime searches for worldly goods may not turn out to be what we expect and will hopefully bring out discoveries of treasures within ourselves. If you like a book with a little more depth and one that will make you think about your life and the reasons you do the things you do, pick this one up.

Darkness Visible by William Styron is a very well written book about depression. The first half of this book was very hard for me to get into, but once I got into it, I very much enjoyed the story of a man who suffered with severe depression. If you have suffered with this terrible disease yourself, this book will show you a story of someone else who has been in the deepest depths and will make you feel like you share an experience, but will also offer you hope for the future. If you know someone else who has suffered from depression, this book can show you perhaps a glimpse of what people feel in these darkest times. I thought this book would be very depressing and would bring me down, but instead, I felt like it offered hope.


The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John Crawford was a great story from a soldier who was over in the Iraqi war. It's pretty horrific to know what he experienced and how war can forever affect soldiers who are there (Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons visits this subject as well). This is a book that all Americans should read to know truths about Iraq that we don't see on the news or in politics.

Collapse

I've been reading this book for over a year and have probably mentioned it on here before, but since I just finished it today, I wanted to give a full review. Jared Diamond won a Pulitzer Prize for 'Guns, Germs and Steel' and 'Collapse' shouldn't be far away from a prize either. Scott picked it up while we were in Costa Rica and he finished it much faster than I was able. It is a very thick book with a LOT of information. It's written a bit like a history textbook, so because of that, I had to take it a little at a time to get through. But the wealth of information - and really interesting and helpful information kept me reading it. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about anything having to do with the environment and past and present societies. Just be patient when getting through it.

'Collapse' looks at ancient societies such as Easter Island, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, The Anasazi, The Mayans, The Vikings, The Greenland Norse and present day societies, such as Rwanda, Dominican Republic and Haiti, China, Australia and Montana. I learned a lot about the ancient societies that I didn't know much about. I also learned an incredible amount about the reason that some past societies collapsed and how current societies tend to do many of the same things. One of the last points that he made in the book is that these past societies were able to collapse without affecting the rest of the world because they were so shut off from the rest of the world. With our current society as it is, there is really no individual part of society that can collapse now without bringing down the rest of the world. That is why we really all have to work together to become more aware and make changes in positive directions.

Some of the things that were covered in the book that I learned a lot more about were:
- Destroying natural habitats - including deforestation, which is one of the biggest causes of collapses of past societies. We are continuing to cut down our forests around the world and are constantly harming our environment and future by doing this. We can, however use wood sustainably by maintaining our supplies and where we take from. There are huge initiatives currently to help with these issues, such as the Forest Stewardship Council, which which was created to change the dialogue about and the practice of sustainable forestry worldwide. We can all be more aware of our uses of products from wood, including in our own houses, paper use, etc. and can help this effort. Companies like Home Depot have begun to give preference to products that are certified by organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council, so that we can ensure we are buying products that are being taken in sustainable ways.
- Wild Food - if managed properly, wild fish stocks can be maintained at our current level of use, but many fisheries are not being managed properly and will likely cause the end of certain types of fish. I have a seafood watch card in my wallet that covers some of the best and worst fish to eat because of the way the fish are caught. There is also a Marine Stewardship Council (www.msc.org) where you can learn more about what we as individuals can do.
- Soil Damage - I had no idea how big of an issue this is, but soil damage has led to many issues with collapses of past societies. Over farming can take nutrients out of soil and cause erosion that can completely change the land indefinitely afterwards. There are issues in Montana and Australia mentioned in this book about soil damage currently, as well as issues with past societies.
- Energy sources - this is a big one for our current society because as we become more and more comfortable in our lifestyles because of newer technologies all the time, we are taking more and more from the environment for our energy sources. If we continue on our current ways, the world as a society is going to be in big trouble in just a few decades and we First Worlders are going to have to either make huge changes in our lifestyles or will be forced to if we want to continue living as comfortably as we do.
- Freshwater uses - Water shortages have been another reason for past collapses of societies and we all know now that the lack of fresh water is a huge issue throughout the world, and personally for me, here in Southern California. Many Third World Societies do not even have access to fresh water, so we should be extremely thankful for what we do have, but if we continue on our present course, we will also be in trouble. We can think about how much water we use in watering our lawns, taking long showers, etc. etc. and can all help in these efforts.
....
There are many other areas that the book mentions of course, but I don't want to write a novel on my blog site. I did just want to mention a few things that I got out of reading this great book.

Stop the Killings!

My Uncle Glen is super cool! For Halloween, he dressed up as a Buddhist monk to protest the killings in Myanmar. I've never seen him without a beard and look at him here! What a way to make a point! You win the contest in my book, Uncle Glen!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

At work today, I dressed up as a CUDA instrument. These are the instruments that I work on every day and so it made sense to dress up as one! The experiment runs in a pouch that is put inside of the CUDA instrument and one of the guys who makes the pouches for us dressed up as a pouch - so we were quite a team! We entered the contest, but the judges weren't very good because we didn't win. :D Here are also a couple of other co-workers who decided to get with the festivities. I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

Halloween Party

The Annual Halloween party is my favorite every year and this year was no exception. In fact, I think this has been the best one yet! We started out with a little pre-party and we had a pea in the pod come and visit us. How precious is Jo and Steve's little Bailie!?



















I also went much more out this year in terms of making the scary goodies for the party. Goodies included apple mouths, eyeballs, witches fingers, healthy (so much so it was scary!) muffins, and punch in a cauldron with dry ice - fun!

The costumes seem to get better and better every year too! Scott was dressed up as Steve Perry from Journey and I was an 80's groupie, in particular a Steve Perry follower. There was some guitar here playing, dancing, chatting and fun all night long. I'll let you vote for your favorite in the posts. At the party, the winner was a tie between Steve Perry (Scott) and the Ob/Gyn Dr. McCreep (Murphy). We had another little one join us later on (look how big and cute Houston is getting - big enough so that I can babysit soon! :D) I know there are a lot of pictures here, but I had to showcase just about everyone. There were about 40 people who came, so there's a lot to show!