My Heaven

 

When I arrived in New Hampshire, ironically, I had not a single immediate relative in the state.  Ginette's flight never made it.  Diana Fontaine kindly picked me up from the airport. 

Much to my surprise, she has been living in my parent's basement for the last few months. 

I should call home more often!

We talked until 3 am.

 

I was up by 7:30 the next morning waiting for my sister, Colette, to come pick me up. 

You can tell I've been living in St. Louis for a while because I was relishing in the weather. 

It was 99 degrees in St. Louis at this time with a heat index of 106.

 

 

 

I loved the view of Dad's apple trees. 

They currently look like they are on steroids,

but dad says it is a year with a really poor harvest.

Really?

 



 

Dad's garden; I miss having a garden.

 

Squishy little nephew, Ben, eating one of dad's apples.

 

 

 I love absolutely love everything about this wharf.  It's always the beginning of good things.

 

 

Isn't she adorable!

 

 

Please don't hold the dirty ferry window against this lovely sight. 

Brant Point Lighthouse. 

One of my favorite places on earth. 

It is down the street from my great grandparents old house.

 

 

 

All of the cottages in Nantucket have names. 

Great Grandma and Grandpa lived in Auburn Cottage

which is one of these fuzzy houses.

 

 

Docking area.

 

 

All of the cottages have these grey shingles. 

That's why Nantucket is known as the Grey Lady.

 

 Ginette managed to get her airline to fly her directly into Nantucket. 

 

 

Ethan and Rosa are adopting this adorable little girl.

 

This child's great-great-great grandfather shot this alligator in Cuba.

This road to the cottage is paved with crushed shells.

Makes me so nostalgic every time.

 



 

Ethan and his boomerangs. 

 

 

My favorite place in all the world.

 

Me and my momma.

 



 

Me and my dad.  I definitely look more like him.

 

My mother's cousin, Matt, was on the island working on his sailboat. 

He took our entire clan out to dinner.

I need to send him a thank you card. 

Only a few weeks before, he and his wife took me out to dinner in St. Louis.

 

Aren't they an adorable family!

 

This is my great-grandmother as a child. 

 

 

Nephew Ben toddling around with goggles on.

 

Great Grandma as an adult, I think?

 

 

Ginette and I went running with Ben.

 



Squished picture of a great-great grandmother, I believe.

 



Squished picture of great-great grandfather.

 



 

Great Grandfather. 

He died shortly before I was born, but I've heard a lot about him.

Loved languages. 

Loved people. 

He would have been fun to know.

 

Great-great grandmother - center.  I do remember her quite well. 

Decked out in Nantucket garb.

 



 

 

 

 

 

Finally a picture of Cousin Matt! He lives in Georgia near Vince.

 

Mom at her birthday dinner.

 

Ginette and I laughed soooo hard over this photo. 

So glad mom doesn't read my blog.

One day I will make a slide show of these family photos.

I have so many great ones.

My dad's hands.  What is up with these white spots?

 



 

 Jasmine chasing a bunny.

 

 

Finally got some color on these pale legs.  Been looking forward to this all year.

 

This outside shower. 

I love it.

On a perfect day, with temperatures in the 70's.

It is heavenly.

 

Until the planes fly overhead.

Then it's awkward.

My gorgeous lady relatives waiting to head to church.

 



 

And guess who we ran into at church, but Lynn and her family!

 

I immediately texted this picture to her sister, Holly.

Lynn used to live in my parents' basement when she was 18.

When I was 18 I spent a Thanksgiving at her house in California with Holly.

I made a blanket that year that I still have and use often.

And her husband, who is a lawyer tried to talk me into being a lawyer.

I remember that conversation distinctly because he was trying to say that he didn't think he could do law school either.

I remember thinking that I really couldn't be a lawyer.  He was just one of those people who was disillusioned about his own intelligence.

Now I'm a lawyer.

Oh the irony.

 

We met in the dentist's unfinished basement.

The white haired man is the branch president.

He is a hotel manager at the hotel right next to my great-grandparents old house.

 

Church was only two hours long.

They flew in the high counselor.

The missionaries taught Sunday School.

 

This was my favorite cottage this year.

The cottage we stay at. Right next to my other great-grandparents' old house.

 



 

By Sunday afternoon it was just me and my parents left.

We went exploring where the blue dot is below.

 

I took this photo for my friend, Cara.  I love wooden boats in harbors.

 

Then we left, and guess who showed up on our ferry out?

 

Yup, the sister missionaries.

 

And Lynn!! 

I loved traveling home with them. 

Lynn told some amazing stories about how they found their new house. 

I love her family so, so much. 

What a tiny little world. 

 

 

When we got to the harbor on the mainland my great uncle David was waiting for us. 

I LOVE this guy.

When I was little, he and my aunt Janet were caught roller blading on the ship.

I thought that was so fun. 

He was in his 60's at the very least at the time.

I keep a pair of rollerblades in my car at all times thanks to his inspiration.

 

 

He has the world's heartiest laugh. 

He genuinely loves pretty much everybody.

He is in his 80's now and still keeps up with a million relatives and old friends.

He still rows and exercises.

He just makes life seem like it will be so much fun forever.

Book Review: Malcolm Gladwell's - What the Dog Saw

 

Malcolm Gladwell is a brilliant writer.  This book is a collection of his favorite stories he wrote over the years as a staff writer at The New Yorker. 

 

Some back story on my love for Malcolm:  My sister, Colette, told me a few years back that she had just read a book she knew I would love.  A few months later the book was in my hands and devoured.  She always just knows me so perfectly.  Eventually, I read several books by Malcolm: Outliers, Tipping Point, and Blink.  He is such an intriguing writer that he takes the world as you know it, shakes it up a bit, and things never quite go back the way they were. And it's better that way. 

 

Then, one day, I found myself in Kansas City waiting for my friend, Paige, to finish her job interview.  While waiting, I turned to the office magazines for entertainment.  There was an article with a graphic of all of my favorite writers in progression, but there was a new one.  A brilliant and handsome young professor had looked at Malcolm's book, Tipping Point, researched it via experiments, and found much of it was only partially right.  The article went on and on about how brilliantly smart he was.  I got online and ordered the book before the interview was finished, and then waited eagerly for its arrival when I returned home.  (This is significant only because I am not an impulse shopper of any kind.)

 

The book was:

 

 

The book was completely read within hours of arrival.  It made a lot of interesting points.  I learned a lot of new things.  But I found myself disappointed.  Let's just say that I didn't put the book down feeling inspired, I just felt better informed.  And that was it.

 

The book really left me wondering: What is it about Malcolm Gladwell's writing that is so compelling?

 

Reading What the Dog Saw helped solve my mystery. 

 

First, Malcolm is a story teller.  Sure, he presents interesting facts, but he whets your curiosity with an intriguing story.  The facts and details perfectly orchestrated to bring you to an interesting question.  That's always section one. 

 

In section two, he introduces you to a person who turns out to be the perfect embodiment of the point he is trying to make.  But Malcolm's writing brilliance is in the way that you end section two of every story feeling like you've met this person; he just has the perfect way of describing them.  One of my favorite type descriptions (paraphrased description of a salesman):  'He is the kind of guy who, if he was your professor and he taught biology, you would be a biology major.' 

 

In the following sections, he fleshes out the mystery to the point that he turns your thinking of the matter from one direction to a completely new direction.  Then back to the person he introduced you to show you to a totally different view of the matter. 

 

And then, the perfect conclusion.  Every. Single. Time.

 

And when you are done each story, you feel something and your mind is blown because he walked you through it so skillfully.  You think about it.  Your turn it around in your head.  You find it weaves itself into later conversations.  In fact, a week or so after I finished the book had already worked itself into several of my conversations.

 

---

 

Just today, I finished a class I found terribly intriguing called, Learning How to Learn on www.coursera.org.  I've been devouring it for the last few days.  This class contains all of the latest research about the brain and how we best learn, and everything came full circle.

 

---

 

Back to Malcolm's writing brilliance.  He uses analogies and metaphors.  This sticks because it hangs on connections in your brain that you already have. In our class, they actually showed us images of the brain where the learning was growing on already formed connections in the brain.  Also, if you engage more parts of your brain, you retain things better.  I think the way he paints such a skillful picture that you feel like you can see them in your minds eye engages more of the brain.

 

In the brilliant book, Making It Stick, they talk about what people actually remember, but what they don't explain is the biological reasons why things stick.  In one part of the book they talk about a teacher who had decided to start each of his science classes with a mystery, teach his lesson, and then ended class by explaining how the science he had just taught resolved the mystery.  He realized he was really on to something one day when he ran out of time to resolve the of the mystery.  The bell rang and all of the students were still sitting there in rapt attention.  He couldn't figure out why they weren't dashing out to their next class when one of them expressed that they wanted to know how the answer to the mystery.   He discovered that there is something about an unanswered question that is engages the human mind in the learning process.  I'd like to see more research on brain activity when something is taught via a mystery versus just being presented. But my point is that there is brilliance in Mr. Gladwell's choice to start each story with a mystery. 

 

Making It Stick also talks about the truth that people remember stories, not facts and figures.  This is where I feel that Malcolm's writing dominates over Mr. Berger's.  He may teach similar facts at the end of the day, but he packages those facts so much better because of his talent at wrapping them up artfully in a story (and mystery) that you will likely not forget.  I remember my mom teaching me this when I was a teenager.  The Stake President had been visiting on the Sunday I had been asked to give a talk.  Later that day, my mom told me that the Stake President really wasn't paying attention until I started to tell a story.  She said after that, I had his attention.  'It is because you told a story.' She pointed out, 'That is what holds people's attention.'  Many a sacrament meeting I wish other people's mother's had told them the same thing. 

 

Which brings me back to www.coursera.org.  It is an innovative, yet elite collection of free courses that one can take online for no credit.  One of the first class I took was by a professor at Yale about human irrationality.  He started every class with a corny joke and had us rate it.  He told us about how he is a burn victim and what made him decide to do what he does.  His graphics were phenomenal.  He did experiments on us that were mind blowing.  I loved it.  My running buddies heard all about it on our morning runs.  I became a coursera missionary. 

 

Until I took more classes.   

 

Oh my goodness.  Some professors are SO BORING.  One of the worst was a class taught by professional teachers who teach people how to teach.  The content was amazing, but the teachers were horrific.  Yes, they started by telling us what they were going to teach, and then following through, and then summarizing.  They did everything by the book, but they were so...snore.  I didn't learn as much even if I was incredibly intrigued by the content.  All I could think was, throw the book out, and learn to teach with energy, passion, and entertainment.

 

Which brought me to one of my life epiphanies: Really good teachers are also good entertainers. 

 

Malcom Gladwell is a good entertainer when it comes to his ability to write.  When you get done reading his work you feel like he is the kind of person who you'd be fascinated to meet at a party.  You'd get his number and later go to dinner and you'd sit and talk for hours because he is just so utterly INTERESTING. 

 

And that is how Malcolm Gladwell's books have been able to affect my life.

 

Next book to read:  David and Goliath

 

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_the_unheard_story_of_david_and_goliath?language=en

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anticipation

This morning I went to get my oil changed.

 

Dressed like this.

 

 

Trust me, it's not overkill.

 

With this text buried in my phone.

 

 

And this soon-to-be-filled suitcase on my floor.

 

 

Tomorrow night I'll be here!!!

 

 

 

and Thursday I'll be on this charming little island.

 

 

Cannot wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Updates for Colette

 

My sister, Colette, complains I don't update my blog often enough. 

I don't think I'm so interesting that there's much to say.

But, here's the latest.

 

 

 

I was a bridesmaid in my friend, Charissa's, wedding. 

I have no photos of the wedding party yet, but here we are at the Bachelorette partay!!

My roommate's friend's band was performing at a local venue. 

She said they would be amazing and they did not disappoint. 

At all. 

They were amazing.

 

I would have NEVER have guessed when I met him that he'd marry Charissa.

Hair for the wedding.  I don't think I've had an updo since prom.

 

 

This is how many bobby pins it took to make this work.  

 

 

 

 

Bubble soccer!!! 

I saw the video of this a few months ago and I fell in love. 

Like if I have kids they need to play this so I can laugh heartily while watching them play sports. 

So when I heard this was happening, I was so there.



 

Two days later I was sword fighting with the young women.

This is what I do with my Wednesday nights.

Don't mess with me.

I've got skillz.

Sort of.

 

I really wanted a photo of the three of us.

This is us at the Muny (outdoor theater in St. Louis). 

Carlos is the world's most awkward photo poser,

so this picture needs to be saved forever because it may never be reproduced.

 

Almost exactly a year ago the three of us started hanging out and I would not have predicted that a year later we'd be such good friends.  I count them among my best friends. 

Cara is one of the most genuinely kind people I know, but honestly,

I almost love her most when she gets mad. 

 

 

 

 

Stud of the Month - July 2014

 

On my way to court this morning, I saw this guy chatting with other lawyers.  I was surprised to see him as I thought he had already moved to Arizona.  He joined me in court when he got there and we chatted through the docket.  I got the update on his 8 children and life in general. 

 

 

By the time I left we were all caught up. It was sad to think that this was probably the last time I'd ever see him in person.  It made me somewhat wistful. 

 

I met Mark in law school.  He was LDS so when we started the J. Reuben Clark Society he was really helpful in getting it up and running.  At the beginning of law school I didn't know of any other LDS students.  By the end, there was a group of us that studied in the same row in the library.  It was nice to feel some solidarity despite the isolation of endless reading and studying. (I have the perfect picture of our group, but I cannot find it!!) 

 

Mark also worked at the library, so he would often catch me in there on a Friday night during my second year, and remind me, only half joking, that I'd never get married if I kept this up.  We both graduated in 2008 and were in the same bar prep class.  EVERYTIME I would talk with a guy, and return to my seat when class started up again, he'd always be like -

 

"So, I saw you just made a new friend.  It's a guy!!" 

 

"Yeah, Mark, he just got married." 

 

"Oh, never mind."

 

Mark amazed me in a lot of respects, he was elders quorum president, while managing law school and a masters in health law...and had three children while he was in school.  I got one degree, had no children, and barely came out unscathed.

 

Buried somewhere in my journals from law school is a story about Mark.  I had gotten up that morning and I had no food left to eat.  I had given everything I had to this degree.  I exhausted every last savings account; even my 401(k) was drained to pay for the bar.  I had nothing left to give, and that day, I was completely out of food.  I got on my knees that morning and prayed for food.  I knew it would come, I just didn't know how.

 

A little later that day I got a call from Mark. 

 

"Hey, are you home?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Good, Juliette (his wife) and I will be stopping by later today." 

 

He hung up, and didn't say why he would be stopping by.  True to his word, he came by later that day.  He and Juliette brought with them bags of groceries.  Keep in mind that he was in a similar spot to me, but even more difficult.  He was graduating with six children in tow. 

 

I'll admit that I cried as I put the groceries away. 

 

When I started taking my own cases and meeting with clients on the side, Mark used to let me borrow his office and refused payment.  It took quite a while before I could convince him to let me pay.  He finally relented.  This picture of him above is from one of the offices he used to let me borrow. 

 

Though I don't see him often, I will miss this guy, and his wife and kids, for his humor, goodness, but most of all, for unknowingly being the answer to my prayer the day that I had nothing left to eat.