Today after Brianna's Little League game, in which she played catcher for the first time and did an excellent job--
We went to Long and Scott Farms. We believe that it is the only working farm in central Florida. We purchased potatoes, tomatoes, avocados and, of course, corn and cucumbers. 
We began eating our produce for lunch and it was delicious!
Maybe another day we will go through the maze.
At Doug's work today someone noticed a couple of unfamiliar cars in the parking lot. With unfamiliar guys hanging around. A while later there were a few more cars and a few more guys. Finally after three hours had gone by there were NINE cars in the parking lot and 8 guys and 1 girl. The employees were getting concerned enough that they decided to call the police department.
While the police were on the phone a couple of the workers decided to brave the crowd in the parking lot and go and ask them what they were doing. Much to their chagrin, these guys were all carrying guns,
and walkie-talkies
and they had badges,
Yes, they had the Mt. Dora police on the line to report a STAKEOUT.
I am not a big eater. This is not a surprise to anyone who knows me at all. Since I started playing tennis on a regular basis I've had to pay extra attention to my diet and increase my calorie intake, so that I don't lose weight. Maybe I will even be able to gain some?
The recent general conference of the church was a spiritual feast. After four two-hour sessions of conference, I was overwhelmed in the good way. I truly felt that I had taken in all that I could and look forward to studying the messages in the months ahead.
Then tonight, I was invited to a meeting with Elder Johnson of the first quorum of seventy. It was like dessert after Thanksgiving dinner. Delicious! Even when you are completely full.
Elder Johnson called Doug to the stake presidency when we lived in the UK. I remembered the engaging personality of this very charming Englishman. Fifteen years later our paths have crossed again.
He is on his 100th mission tour with his wife, Pamela.
Here are a few of my favorite thoughts from the evening:
He also counseled us to look for and study the theme of unity in conference.
It was a wonderful evening, and I feel blessed to have had this very fulfilling experience.
I decided to try some vegetables this winter. The rose garden lost its sun because of some nearby overgrown trees. I recently pulled out all the roses but one...which meant I had an area with water. Doug cut back the overgrown trees and with some serious limb dragging to the woodpile by yours truly on Saturday, I have hope for a little harvest.
Yesterday on the left, today, below. Amazing the difference one day can make! Grow green beans gr
ow!
I checked the packages today because I was worried about the nearby peas that have yet to surface. It said 7-10 days for germination on all of them, so I guess these guys are just eager to be up. I only planted 4 days ago! I also planted lettuces and cucumbers.
Tomatoes coming.
And now for some purples!
I bought this hidden lily in the half off section at Walmart a couple of weeks ago. They are supposed to have already finished blooming and will die back for the winter, but then it sent up not one, but two, beautiful blooms. I feel very lucky for that unexpected bonus.
The bay leaves had been very slow in coming. (I've had this plant for two years). It finally looks like I will have plenty for soups and stews when the weather cools down.
The Mexican sage is still extraordinary.
The gilt edge toad lily is such a pretty little thing. I just wish it was bigger. I do love how it self sows!
No birds for my berries yet. I have plenty of gorgeous berries and I even have plenty of birds. I guess I just don't have berry eating birds!
In honor of Halloween, here are the only two oranges I could find. The lantana below grows wild all over the property.
And here are my real oranges. But they won't be ready for another couple of months.
Even the weeds are photogenic today!
Umatilla
Cross Country
This YW of mine smiles alot...even when she's running. She helps me live in the now texting with me. 
I watched her improve her personal best by two minutes today!
Way to go, Melissa!
Callers keep confusing Brianna for me on the phone. Friends who've seen her only recently are surprised. Brianna is growing up quickly. 
She loves cheering for her Little League team and is enjoying playing tennis with her friend, Natalie. She likes projects that require ideas and creativity. She does not like math. She is still doing Florida Virtual School, but she would like to go to regular school again at some point. She likes to bake. She also likes to do her nails, but she doesn't do them in the house because I don't allow it. She runs stuff up and down the stairs for her dad and I and she waters my garden for me when I am at work. She bears her testimony on Fast Sundays because the Bishop has asked our youth to make it a priority, even though she is really scared...and shaking. She loves people and can remember the names of people that she met only once a long time ago. She is a terrific babysitter. She is positive, happy,
And, she is counting the days until she is a real teenager--46.
Debbie Clayton and I went to the art show tonight. I felt especially disappointed after this exhibit at Lake Eustis only minutes before. What a beautiful setting.
There were gators lurking in the tranquil waters. After what has happened to the economy this week, I thought what a metaphor. I want to be ever vigilant, following what our prophet has to say and the promptings of the Holy Ghost, while enjoying the beauty of life.
Megan Berge plays JV volleyball for Mt. Dora High School. She is also one of my YW. I enjoyed watching her and her team this afternoon.
Well, they are mine for six and half hours everyday anyway. We had a rough start to the year--three suspensions and numerous referrals to guidance. But the past 5 days are probably the best 5 days I've had in teaching for a long time. It makes such a difference when you can teach instead of tend. My class even dealt with an extraordinary event today. There was a fire drill while they were eating lunch. The fourth grade aide told them to follow her. Meanwhile, I was running around the school looking for my class. I never did find them. With over a thousand kids, there were too many places to go and not enough time. (The firemen that were checking the system at our school accidentally set off the alarm. The trucks came and everything.) Later, the aide sought me out to tell me that they were great! Oh, I love to hear that! I was still tired to the bone every night, but it is a different kind of tired...the good kind.
PS. Which one do you think wrote that not so apologetic apology back on September 24?
Update: I learned from a comment on Kasey's blog that this is not the NEA's Big Read but one compiled in the U.K. by the BBC. Still, a great exercise.
I followed Kasey's admonition, although I have only read about half as many of these books as she has. Of course, I think that the Book of Mormon should be on the list. As for books that I want to read on the list--there are many of them that I don't know anything about. I think I'll do a little research using this list.
The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six. Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and:
Bold those we have read
Italicize those we intend to read
Underline the books we LOVE
Then share this list on your blog, too, if you like.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (some)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Isaiah 2: 3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 
It is general conference weekend. I love to hear the words of the leaders of the church. I find it renewing and inspiring.
Favorite ideas:
Perry- be positive through stress, the best is yet to come and there are spiritual benefits of a simplified life style
Allred-you don't know everything, but you know enough and faith is a decision so choose faith
Uctdorf-present circumstances give way to future blessings
Bednar-meaningful morning prayer is the spiritual creation of the day
I am looking forward to studying Elder Uctdorf's talk at the RS broadcast and Elder Bednar's talk together. For me, they were most enlightening.
Happy Birthday dear Melody
Oh, wait...
your birthday was 7months and 1 day ago?
It sure was fun spending time with you tonight...even though we still didn't get you to the movies!
From, Debbie and Debbie
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
October 23, 2008
November 23, 2008 My mom is checking out the new slab for our chapel.
December 16, 2008
Nashua planned and organized our event this year as her last Personal Progress project. It turned out so beautiful. Well done Nashua!
