we're getting there, slow and steady

it has now been over a year since we first posted about our quest to read the 100 greatest books ever written (according to the easton press). i figured it would be fun to do an annual blog showing the progress we've made in the past 12 months. the x's italicized mark our newly read books since last year's blog. (and again, not in any order, just numbered for my sake)

1. twenty thousand leagues under the sea - jules verne (x)
2. the scarlet letter - nathaniel hawthorne (x)
3. dr. jekyll and mr. hyde - robert louis stevenson
4. walden - henry david thoreau
5. gulliver's travels - jonathan swift (x)
6. moby dick - herman melville
7. a farewell to arms - ernest hemingway
8. the red badge of courage - stephen crane
9. the jungle book - rudyard kipling (x)
10. the odyssey - homer
11. the pilgrim's progress - john bunyan
12. a portrait of the artist as a young man - james joyce
13. paradise lost - john milton
14. tales from the arabian nights - richard burton
15. great expectations - charles dickens
16. candide - voltaire (x)
17. oedipus the king - sophocles
18. the hunchback of notre dame - victor hugo
19. the last of the mohicans - james fenimore cooper
20. the sea wolf - jack london
21. cyrano de bergerac - edmond rostand
22. the canterbury tales - geoffrey chaucer
23. collected poems - robert browning
24. the essays of ralph waldo emerson - ralph waldo emerson
25. the portrait of a lady - henry james
26. uncle tom's cabin - harriet beecher stowe
27. treasure island - robert louis stevenson (x)
28. adventures of sherlock holmes - sir arthur conan doyle (x)
29. collected poems - john keats
30. on the origin of species - charles darwin
31. don quixote - miguel de cervantes saavedra
32. collected poems - robert frost
33. the legend of sleepy hallow & other stories - washington irving
34. animal farm - george orwell (x)
35. wuthering heights - emily bronte (x)
36. she stoops to conquer - oliver goldsmith
37. of mice and men - john steinbeck (x)
38. pride and prejudice - jane austen (x)
39. the brothers karamazov - fyodor dostoevsky
40. les miserables - victor hugo
41. the iliad - homer (x)
42. lady chatterley's lover - d.h. lawrence
43. the count of monte cristo - alexandre dumas (x)
44. brave new world - aldous huxley (x)
45. aesop's fables - aesop (x)
46. lord jim - joseph conrad
47. the autobiography of benjamin franklin - benjamin franklin
48. the three musketeers - alexandre dumas (x)
49. politics and the poetics - aristotle
50. the aeneid - virgil
51. the cherry orchard and the three sisters - anton chekhov
52. the tragedies - william shakespeare
53. pygmalion and candida - george bernard shaw
54. the analects of confucius - confucius
55. the prince - niccolo machiavelli
56. jane eyre - charlotte bronte (x)
57. the divine comedy - dante alighieri (x)
58. robinson crusoe - daniel defoe
59. madame bovary - gustave flaubert
60. collected poems - william butler yeats
61. the picture of dorian gray - oscar wilde (x)
62. vanity fair - william makepeace thackeray
63. the decameron - giovanni boccaccio
64. beowulf - anonymous (x)
65. anna karenina - leo tolstoy
66. the necklace and other tales - guy de maupassant
67. the time machine - h.g. wells
68. fathers and sons - ivan turgenev
69. heart of darkness - joseph conrad
70. war and peace - leo tolstoy
71. the history of early rome - livy
72. little women - louisa may alcott (x)
73. the talisman - sir walter scott
74. tess of the d'urbervilles - thomas hardy
75. alice's adventures in wonderland - lewis carroll
76. dracula - bram stoker
77. the rubaiyat of omar khayyam - omar khayyam
78. the red and the black - stendhal
79. a tale of two cities - charles dickens (x)
80. the republic - plato
81. collected poems - emily dickinson
82. faust - johann wolfgang von goethe
83. the comedies - william shakespeare
84. tom jones - henry fielding
85. the federalist papers - a. hamilton, j. madison and j. jay
86. silas marner - george eliot
87. the rights of man - thomas paine
88. leaves of grass - walt whitman
89. billy budd - herman melville
90. the confessions - st. augustine
91. tales of mystery and imagination - edgar allan poe
92. ivanhoe - sir walter scott
93. the way of all flesh - samuel butler
94. the sound and the fury - william faulkner
95. crime and punishment - fyodor dostoevsky
96. grimm's fairy tales - jacob and wilhelm grimm
97. adventures of huckleberry finn - mark twain
98. frankenstein - mary shelley
99. david copperfield - charles dickens
100. the histories - william shakespeare

22/100
that means we've read 9 books off the list this past year. not horrible. almost a quarter of the way there. still a long way to go though. :)

tangents

well i'm told it's my turn to write. i suppose it is. amber has done the last few blogs, so i guess it's only fair. problem - nothing to write about. there's just nothing too grand going on these days. i can't even take the easy way out and write a book review because i haven't finished a book in forever (at the moment i find myself trapped within the words of shakespeare, which isn't exactly light reading). now don't get me wrong - it has been an eventful month with football, ob/gyn appointments, baby gear shopping, amber realizing she is no longer in control of her own body, mother's day, and other such activities. but i normally write about the top news stories as opposed to these smaller, everyday events. but i heard it once said that there really is nothing bigger than the little things. so this is my attempt to take an insignificant moment, break it down and analyze it, go off on a tangent or two, and make it headline news.

it was just another softball game. i've played enough of them that it really isn't anything special. i must say upfront that softball is not my sport. i consider myself capable at excelling at most athletic endeavors, but i know my limits - i can't ice skate and i can't bat. maybe with time i could learn to skate (not too many chances to practice in west texas), but the extent of my batting skills will always be to either hit the ball straight into the ground and use my speed or to pop it straight up and pray for an error. with this deficiency clearly in mind, i reluctantly signed my name on the roster for the ward softball team.
a word now on the married student ward that amber and i find ourselves in at the present time. we have been here well over a year and a half now, but we still have trouble calling it "our" ward. the only real friends we've had in the ward were the maughans, who followed us over from the singles ward, and have now moved on and left us to fend for ourselves. we have absolutely nothing bad to say about our ward. we fully accept that we are to blame for not bonding with the ward like we wished. amber and i are just two very shy people who don't make friends quickly. it's not that we need friends in the ward. we go to church because the church is true. but having a friend or two doesn't hurt. i was in the singles ward for well over a year before anyone realized who i was. it wasn't until the summer hit and the singles ward starting playing some sports that i finally made some friends.
and that leads us to my self-realization. i am a shy guy. i don't shine in social situations with people i don't know. i just don't have much confidence in myself. but one of the few things that i believe i am good at is athletic competition. it's the one area of my life i feel sure about. through the years i have found that nearly all of my friends have been made while playing sports. it's where, in most instances, i can relax and be myself, with no worries of looking silly. it's where i actually know what i'm talking about and can contribute to the conversation. this all came to mind while i sat in my elders quorum meeting with the sign-up sheet in my lap. was i jumping for joy at the thought of playing softball? not at all. i enjoy playing it for fun, but like i said, it really isn't my sport. i was a little worried about looking like a fool. softball is definitely not the sport i would have chosen as the opportunity to bond with my fellow brethren. but it was an opportunity. i'd never feel like i'm part of this ward until i tried.

the day of the first game finally rolled around. our wonderful downstairs neighbors and fellow ward members, the stewarts, offered us a ride to the game. unfortunately this meant i couldn't run away and escape after my first strike out or throwing error. i was stuck. trapped even. we got to the field and it was time to warm up. and that leads us to my next self-realization - i am a mental case. i really wouldn't be surprised if, given the chance, a psychiatrist diagnosed me with anxiety problems, to go along with my many other problems. i am, in sporting terms, a choker.
let me paint you a picture. on one side of the canvas is cool and composed scott. he's funny and charming. he's somewhat smart, articulate, and just a pleasure to be around. and he could quite possibly be the greatest athlete you've never known. when playing sports with friends, he can pretty much do anything he wants. and did i mention how incredibly humble he is? :) but on the other side of the canvas is nervous and anxious scott. he is quiet as a mouse, stutters on any word over two syllables, and he's a touch sweaty and stinky at times. and when it comes to sports... well the words "bumbling idiot" come to mind. and what is the difference between these two scotts? pressure. i can't handle it. both in my social life as well as in sports. put me in an organized league where winning matters and you might as well blindfold me. i miss wide open lay-ups, let easy pop flies bounce off my head, trip over my own feet, and show an overall lack of coordination.
by far the worse situation you could possibly put me in is have me throw a softball around with someone i don't know in a small amount of space. and that's exactly where i was. my teammate stood not ten feet away, and i threw that ball everywhere but to him. i actually worried for my life when i hit another teammate, a giant of a man who happens to be a byu shot put champion, in the back with an errant throw. that was where i would have jumped in my car and took off had i been driving, but i was stuck. so the game begins. and sure enough, my first at-bat and the bases were loaded. great. dang pressure.
now i don't know if God cares so much for sports, but i know He must care for me. with the first swing of my bat, the ball goes flying past the center fielder, giving me my first ever grand slam. and with that swing, all of my anxiety was swept away and i could have some fun. i finished the day with a couple more doubles, a couple catches in the outfield, and, most importantly to me, zero errors.
i can't say if this will open me up to the ward or not. who knows if at the next game my anxiety will get the best of me and i'll be the spaz once again. and next time i go to church i just might be the same guy who sits there not saying much. but for that one hour, i opened up just a bit, had some fun with my fellow brethren, and, for a moment, could call it "my" ward. at least i'll always have my amber. :)

and for the record, the pictures and video are from our second game, where i succeeded once again in not being a total goofball. oh, and amber wants it known she is not the one yelling in the video. :)

Baby Bump and Pictures

I'm finally beginning to look pregnant, I think... We haven't been very consistent in taking these photos but here are a few shots... don't mind my goofy expressions, I never know how I should pose for these things. :) I'm also feeling our baby girl moving and kicking more and more, it's so much fun!

I would much rather be behind the camera...which was what I got to do last weekend! I've always loved photography and working at a photo lab I see a lot of pictures going through. I love pictures of people. I'd love to be a portrait photographer. Only problem is the equipment is expensive, it can be very subjective (I think that's the right term) and I tend to get a little shy around people I don't know well so it's difficult making people feel comfortable around me in order to take their picture. But it's still a hobby and something I enjoy learning about, so for this last Christmas Scott bought me a digital SLR camera. I love it. The pictures turn out so much better than my point and shoot. I'm kind of a wimp to the cold so I hadn't gone outside to take pictures until just last week. My 4 month old nephew and little sister were sweet enough to let me practice on them. These are a few of my favorites. :)

Moab Trip

So this last weekend, to celebrate Easter, we decided to go down to Moab with family to enjoy the nice weather and go on a couple easy hikes...

We woke up nice and early, putting on shorts and t-shirts, excited about some nice warm weather. However after looking out the window and seeing the snow falling with force, we changed into some warmer clothes, bringing our shorts along to hopefully change into once we got to warmer weather down in Moab. We met up with family in Spanish Fork and all 19 of us (9 adults, and 10 children), left sometime before 7am. The snow kept falling and we found ourselves driving through a blizzard as we made our way through the canyon. Scary moment occurred when our car started sliding one way and then the other and we found ourselves doing a complete 180 turn on the highway. I know the Lord must have been watching over us though because thankfully there were no cars coming the opposite direction. We slid and came to a stop on the opposite side where we easily were able to drive out, turn around again and keep going. We made it out of the canyon just as the sun came out and the snow stopped falling. We made it to the Arches National Park around 10 or so, and spent a few hours walking and seeing the amazing arches. Scott and I had both never been there before and I'd actually like to go again sometime when I'm not pregnant and I'm more in shape. :) I don't remember all the names of the arches we did see and it was a bit colder and windier than we expected (so those shorts we packed never left the car... sad), but overall we had a great time. It was fun spending time with family and I really enjoyed getting out and getting some exercise (which I've been slacking on since getting pregnant). We had a fun picnic in the park before separating. Half of our group continued the drive down to Texas to see more family, while the rest of us had to head back home. We made it home safe and sound, although I have to admit I was completely wiped out. I had no trouble sleeping that night. :) Here are a few pics from the trip...(minus the whole blizzard part, which we're trying to forget).

9 years, 4 months, and 14 days

broken down that's 4,152 days. that's 99,648 hours. that's 5,978,880 minutes. that's 358,732,800 seconds. and that is how long it has been since i've put on the pads and played a real game of football. and i have felt every painful moment of it. but that unfortunately long streak has finally come to an end. it's a long story, full of many trials and tribulations. take a walk with me and i'll tell it to you. you might even learn a lesson or two about life along the way... but probably not. i do warn you that this is a long and boring story, all about football, so i apologize to all of amber's family and friends. you guys can skip this blog. :)

a long, long time ago, there once was a boy. he was a manly boy, wise beyond his years. i'm sure you've guessed it, but this boy was me. now i didn't grow up playing football. my earliest memories are of when i lived in maine, which isn't quite known for its football fever. that completely changed when i moved down to texas, where football often substitutes religion to the locals. i didn't initially fall madly in love with the game. i quit football in 7th grade, but decided to give it a try in 8th grade, where i quickly was put as the 9th string tight end. i believe i've always been a slightly above average athlete, but i had no idea what i was doing on the football field so i just looked silly. plus there were just so many other kids that i never even got the chance to practice. so i stood everyday for 2 hours in the scorching texas sun in my ill-fitting pads. didn't really help my growing love affair with the sport. so on to high school i went.texas high school football is serious stuff. it's not like in middle school where everyone played. so i, having been 9th string, believed my calling in life was elsewhere and left football and took up another equally respected sport - p.e. the years went by and slowly my understanding of the game began to grow, thanks in large part to monday night football, the occasional game in p.e., and 'john elway's football' for the super nintendo.
one day halfway through my junior year, after playing a game in my p.e. class, the p.e. coach called me over and asked why i wasn't playing for the high school team. i told him i didn't think i was that good, but he encouraged me to give it a try. i later told my church young men's leader, gene current, all about the story and he agreed with my coach completely. i shrugged it off and thought nothing more of it until the next day at school. midway through art class i got a note telling me to go see the head football coach. thinking i was in huge trouble, i slowly trudged my way over to the football offices, my mind racing as to what i might have done. i then had a seat before the head coach, a sort of local celebrity in my small town. he tells me he received a call from a mr. current saying that i would make a valuable addition to the team. as nervous as i was, there was no way i could say no, and the very next day, as scared as any human could be, there i was sitting in the football locker room. there is no way i should have been playing with my lack of experience and nerves, but by my first game, i was the starting receiver for a top level texas high school football team. crazy. just a few years earlier i was 9th string on my little middle school team. now i stood before 20,000 people, the announcer calling my name. funny how life goes sometimes.
now as much as i love football, there are things that will always come first - my faith, my family, my friends, and of course my wife, mrs. amber rose. so as high school ended, it wasn't on to play college ball like many of my teammates. it was off to new york city for two years to serve a mission for my church. i returned home, wiser and happier, having made one of the best decisions of my life. but the desire to play was still there, so even though i was horribly out of shape, i decided i would give it a try and attempt to play at the next level. so off to college i went.
i wasn't there long before the complexities of life blessed me with their presence. long story short (ha ha, right? this is anything but a short story) - my days of tackle football came to an end and my days of flag football began. this continued to an almost zealous degree when i moved to utah, where at one point i was playing in 4 different leagues at once. flag football has been it for the longest time now. then the internet bestowed a gift upon me.
i discovered through facebook that there was a full contact football league starting up, open to anyone who wanted to get a group of friends together. my interest peaked immediately. so i sent a few texts out to gauge the interest level of my football friends. i got a great response, but the recruiting process ended up being just one crazy experience. i count nearly 30 guys who had expressed some sort of interest at one point or another but later backed out on me. and then there was the problem of money because football pads and a helmet can be quite expensive. i was absolutely positive at more than one point that there was no way i'd get this team together. but thanks to the love and support of my beautiful bride amber, the excellent recruiting by friends, and the aid of spanish fork high who graciously is lending us all our equipment, the diamondback tackle football team was all set to play.
our first game was looming and my knees were knocking. to make matters worse, our qb and largest lineman were both missing the first game, leaving me to play quarterback behind a depleted offensive line. great. and to make matters even worse we were playing a semi-pro team our first game. i wasn't feeling so hot. the day finally came and of course i couldn't sleep that night. i was at the field a good two hours early to prepare myself. a mixture of nervousness and excitement made me want to puke. but as soon as the game started, all that went away, and it quickly became evident we would be just fine. we ended up being more than "just fine", winning 38 to 0. our defense absolutely dominated, allowing only one first down all game, sacking the qb a dozen or so times, and getting a safety. the only thing lacking was a passing game, but with me throwing, that was to be expected. near the end i did play my true position (wide receiver) for one play and caught a quick touchdown.
and since this has taken me so long to post, i might as well include this week's game as well. having scouted the other teams a little, we expected an easy victory this week, and our expectations were fulfilled. with the return of our real qb and biggest lineman, we sought to establish a passing game, and we most definitely did. i personally only caught one pass (a 50 yarder for a td), then pulled myself to let other guys get some lovin'. i got a little bit of glory on defense, intercepting two passes, returning one for a touchdown. we won our second game 46 to 0, again dominating on defense, allowing only one first down, and recording another safety. our defense is stout.
we are looking pretty good, but it only gets tougher from here on out. man, it feels so good to put pads on again. i have to express my eternal gratitude to my wife amber. thank you for letting your old and fat husband play again. and thank you for the awesome pictures. i love good pictures of me playing football. :)

The Heretic's Daughter

So I realized it's been a long time since I blogged about a book I've read. It's not because I haven't been reading though, I just haven't been reading a lot with everything going on and I haven't read any of the books on our 100 list. Anyway, this last book I just finished was suggested to me by my sister in law. She told me it took place around the same time as the Scarlet Letter, and so not having loved the Scarlet Letter I was a little worried to get into this one. However, I really got into it and enjoyed it. I've always loved historical novels, just how they make history and what really happened seem more real I guess? if that makes sense. I don't know how to explain it, I've never loved the subject of history, but when they put characters with personality into a historical event, it's just so much more interesting. Anyway, the Heretic's Daughter was all about the salem witch trials and it was interesting because it was a true story sort of fictionalized. The author, Kathleen Kent, wrote about her great grandmother and all the stories she had heard and put them together along with her own research about the salem witch trials to make this story. It was really sad to read about the conditions of the prisons that held the 'witches' being put under trial. It also blew my mind how the judges could believe these random girls claims of being pinched or poked by these people they didn't even know. All those accused were trapped. If they said they weren't witches and pled innocent they were hung, if they lied and said they were witches then they were taken to the prison (where the conditions probably killed many) and if they didn't say anything they were tortured. Crazy. Interesting book. :)

happy international women's day!... p.s. we're having one!

for the very few of you who didn't know, march 8th was international women's day, but really, who didn't know that? so what did you do for this most special of holidays? amber and i thought we would celebrate by having a girl. :)

yes, that's right - a girl! girl, girl, girl! i just can't say it enough! a beautiful baby girl. well maybe not beautiful by the world's standards quite yet (still looks like a little alien to me), but i don't believe amber or i have ever seen anything more beautiful to us.
with great, and i mean great, anticipation we headed to the ob/gyn's office that morning. it was our 20 week visit and we knew what that meant - the ultrasound! but this was no ordinary ultrasound. it was OUR ultrasound! it was an ULTRA-ultrasound! anyways, we got to the office a few minutes early for our visit. we ended up sitting in the waiting room for over an hour, but we were quite fine with that - we were going to find out the sex of our baby today! they finally called our names and the first question they ask us once we're in the back is when our ultrasound is scheduled. with a little confusion we told her we thought it was today. well we find out that we're supposed to have scheduled the ultrasound in addition to our regular visit, but nobody had told us that. ever seen a balloon pop? that was amber and i at that moment. :(
well the nurse said she would try to work some magic and left us waiting for the doctor. the doctor came in and did the usual stuff - measured amber's belly (she is right where she's supposed to be), listened to the heartbeat (found it right away for once and it's a perfect 160 bpm), and answered our questions (the doctor thinks that on a scale of 1 to 10, i 'm about a 6.5 in sexiness). the nurse then popped her head in and said she hooked us up and we could head over for the ultrasound as soon as we were done with the doctor. ever seen one of those street performers get into one of those really small boxes?! that wasn't us at that moment, but how do they do that?! that's just crazy. anyways, we were pretty happy. :) the doctor (who we must say is our favorite doctor as of yet) wished us luck and sent us on our merry way.
we hurried across the parking lot to the other office and checked in there. we waited a little while longer before they called us in and led us back into the room for the real fun of the day. they put amber up on the table and dimmed the lights. it felt like a movie was about to begin. we were silent, almost in a reverent awe. the nurse turned on the machine, plopped a bunch of goo onto amber's stomach, and the show began.
we instantly saw the top of the baby's head. with a little playing around of the sensor thing on amber's belly (i couldn't help but think of an arcade joystick), we got a view of the baby's spine. then an arm and then the other arm. we then see the heart beating, checked out a few other organs, then got to see our baby's cute little legs. we got a great shot of our baby's tiny little foot. it was so cute. it really is amazing to know that this little thing is in amber right now. little bit creepy, but still really amazing. :) well we got a good face shot (which again i must say - amazing, but just a bit creepy :) ), then it was on to what we all really wanted to know - what gender was our baby?!
well i guess our baby takes after it's parents, because it was acting pretty shy. it must have known it was being spied on because at one point it even had it's little hand down blocking us from what we wanted to see. our modest little baby. :) well the nurse worked the sensor like a true pac-man champion and we finally got the shot we wanted - it's a girl!
everything looked really good and our baby appears to be really healthy. if you couldn't tell from all the exclamation points and smiley faces, we're pretty excited. yes, on july 28th, one more girl is scheduled to be joining us here on earth. nearly 7 billion, plus one. but this one will be unlike all the rest. this one will be very, very special. no offense to all the other beautiful babies out there, but this one will be ours. whoa. :)