The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fun book. Great mash of Roman and Greek mythology. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

View all my reviews

Anxious for the Year-end Close to End

Getting my clock cleaned.

photo by Profound Whatever via PhotoRee

Commence belly-aching.

There are a few times each year when work just gets to be very demanding. It is always challenging. I can appreciate that — it beats being bored, after all.

However, in the environment I am in, some of the more challenging times are during quarter-end and year-end closing of the financial books. This is especially true when auditors are involved. The auditors are good people, who I actually enjoy being around. But the nature of the work that they do is usually mind wracking. After all, who likes having someone look for errors in the work they are doing.

For some reason, this is especially true with this year-end close. The closing of the books themselves, this time around went fairly well. We made good time, and there weren't too many last-minute adjustments.

However, the aftermath with explaining differences from the target and having to explain the financial calculations with the auditors has been more challenging.

I am ready for a nice vacation.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Last night instead of watching a movie from Netflix like we normally do, we watched the finale of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. After nine seasons, the series is coming to an end. Apparently, due to sagging ratings. (In my opinion, this is one of the few reality shows worth watching.)

The series finale found Ty Pennington and his crew in Joplin, Missouri where a tornado tore apart the town in May, 2011. In the show, the crew built seven new homes for seven families in the Joplin area. Not only did the show share the heart tugging experiences of the families whose lives had been unglued by the tornado.

Mary Ann Riojas a former recipient of the work done by the show shares about hearing the end of the series. "I was kinda bummed cuz I was hoping they would come back to Fresno so we could see the other end of it. Get to be here when all the action was taking place, Cuz we missed all that when it happened to us yeah, I was kinda bummed out."

Not only did the show build Riojas' family a new home that enables her to maneuver throughout in her wheelchair but also provides a nice environment for her four children. The show also gave her the hope and courage to change her life. Since the show, she has become a full-time sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics. Her then fifteen-year-old son, Angel, who was drifting at the time, was given the chance to go onto college where he is preparing to become a registered nurse.

In the final episode, Ty and crew built homes for seven families in a newly created neighborhood near a park that they brought back to life.

The seven families were

1. The Howard family. Dad, Kyle is firefighter who was one of the first responders to the aftermath of the tornado. At home, wife Jill, huddled in a bathtub with her sons Konnor, Korbin and Kevin.
2. Crystal Cogdill, who lost a son in the tornado.
3. Crystal Whitely, who happened to be a neighbor to Cogdill. She lost two children in the tornado.
4. Natalie and Scott Gonzalez. The two were living together at the time of the tornado. After the tornado, they determined to get married. During the show, the two were surprised with the opportunity to get married on the show.
5. The Nguyens. Than Nguyen served in the Vietnamese Air Force alongside American troops. He was held captive during the war for eleven years. He migrated to the United States to begin a new life. At 71, he had recently retired.
6. The Nevins family.
7. The Walters family.

All of the families served their treasured town of Joplin during and after the tornado. Whether that was in their professions as teachers, firemen, and nurses, or as neighbors concerned about the welfare of those around them.

As a family, we will miss watching Extreme Makeover. ABC network indicates that there will be future special episodes

Malaprop's Bookstore

Malaprops Bookstore, Asheville, NC

This past Saturday, our family decided to go to downtown Asheville to hang out and see the sites. It's telling that the place our family decided to go was to Malaprop's bookstore. Malaprops is a great independent bookstore in the heart of downtown. (Not far from the downtown public library, incidentally.)

Our family is a lover of books. Everyone from Carolyn on up has a love affair with books. We each have our own interests, but it's not uncommon for the same book to pass through several hands before our family is through with it. (This Christmas break, Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series passed through our family. My favorite book was The King of Attolia, the third book in the series.)

Back to Malaprop's though. The bookstore has been at the bedrock of Asheville from the downtown revitalization that began back in the 1980's. In fact the owner of Malaprop's, Emoke B'Racz, indicates that when she first opened the bookstore she was able to spend most of her capital on books rather than on rent. At that time, she says, "you could walk 3 blocks in any direction before you found a door not nailed down."

Her purpose in starting Malaprop's was to create "a place where poetry matters, where women’s words are as important as men’s, where one is surprised by excellence, where good writing has a home, where I could nurture my addiction to literature, and play, enjoy, and entertain people drawn to quality books."

On our trip to the bookstore Saturday night, I noted as the family ambled through the rows of bookshelves that the store embodied the essence of the quirkiness and homeliness of Asheville--current, suburban, with an emphasis on conscious living.

I found a whole bookshelf on Yoga. While next to it was the business section which only had a few books.

When we lived in Seattle, there were bookstores focused on computers and technology. In Asheville, there is a bookstore that is dedicated to poetry, consciousness, and sustainable living.

While our family is not the most liberal, we enjoyed our trip to Malaprop's and will be back for more.

Happy New Years!

Well, we're off to a new year. The year was off to a quiet start with church on Sunday being our primary event. On Monday, I had to head out for work as this week is the week of year-end close. (My life revolves around a financial calendar.) In my case, a 5-4-4. That is to say, a five week month, then two four weeks to make up the fiscal quarter.

Almost needless to say, the year-end close is one of the periods that is most scrutinized from an auditing perspective. It is also the period on which the year is finally based. So, the close this week has been important—to say the least.

The children had Monday off with the intention of heading back to school on Tuesday. However, we had a wee bit of snow on Monday night, so school was cancelled Tuesday. The kids were more than happy to stay home another day.

Martha will start school tomorrow, Thursday. She will have two days of clinicals and then two days of classes each week.

With everybody but me and Carolyn being in school, I think one of our New Year's resolutions will be to make it through the year.

Christmas Feast

Benjamin, our 16-year-old going on 17, has developed a real passion for food this year. He loves showcasing his culinary skills.

In the past, he has often held out on the family on the foods he makes. He makes a long list of food. We buy the food. We make it. Then he refuses to let us eat it.

We discovered this Christmas that part of the logic behind the 'madness' is that he is waiting to showcase the food he made. Since the family in Arden each had their own Christmas dinners, Benjamin held on to a number of the dishes until Monday when our family got together with Martha's sister, Marian, and her family.

The menu this year included: Gingerbread and muffins (I don't normally like it but this was good!), a cornflake marshmallow wreath (kind of like Rice Crispy treats only with cornflakes. Again a great twist on a favorite.) Butterscotch cookies, fudge (we're still working on perfecting that one), a Christmas punch, and a Christmas stollen. We also had brownies he had made earlier in the week.

It was all very good food!

One of the benefits we've discovered with having all this food around is that now that all the pans and bowls have been washed there have been a lot fewer dishes.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

As the year draws to a close, and we have the opportunity to reflect upon the past year and what it has meant to us, we each came up with a short list of the things for which we are most grateful. I will precede that with the thought that we are so grateful for this time of year and what it represents. We are grateful for all that we have been given, the blessings of good health and good friends.

Carolyn at the Park

Carolyn (3) frequently at Grandma's while Mommy's at school

One of things that Carolyn remembers from this year is a family trip we took this summer. One of the highpoints of the trip was watching her cousin, Patrick DeFranco, get married in the Palmyra, NY temple.

Another big change for our family this year was when Steve's parents moved into an assisted living facility in Tacoma, Washington. That meant Steve's older brother, Tom, who needs support, had to find a new place to live. He moved out here to Asheville. Carolyn took very well to the change and really enjoyed having her uncle in the house. (He has since moved on to his own assisted living facility, but she enjoys seeing him when he comes on the weekends.)

Another thing that Carolyn really enjoyed was going to her Aunt Marian's house to play with their dog, Butterscotch, (a golden lab, beagle mix) that they recently got.

Joshua at the holiday concert

Joshua (11) in middle school

Both Joshua and Jessica started attending middle school at Cane Creek this year. They are in sixth grade with different sets of teachers, so they seldom see each other. This is a big change for them with more responsibility. The teachers they have are much more stern than those they have had in the past.

A tradition at Cane Creek Middle School for a number of years has been for the sixth graders to go out to Earthshine Lodge near Lake Toxaway, NC. Both Joshua and Jessica went there this year. The lodge offers outside education. Per their website the course is "designed to inspire thought and creativity, as well as encourage students to push themselves to destroy the myth of 'I Can't.'"

Joshua began the summer by going to band camp. He is playing the trombone. He will say that he doesn't like it, but I think he enjoys playing in the concerts and learning a new skill.

Jessica at New River Gorge

Jessica (13) in middle school

Jessica also enjoyed our long road trip we made this summer. We drove up through Virginia, Pennsylvania, and into New York state. We stopped at the Priesthood Restoration Site in Harmony, Pennsylvania. (Harmony is now Oakland, PA.) From there we headed north to Palmyra. We enjoyed spending the day with the DeFranco's and Beth's family.

Palmyra has a lot of church history. We stopped at the Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorrah, the Joseph Smith Farm, the Grandin Building, and the Peter Whitmer farm.

After leaving Palmyra, the family headed for Niagara Falls, which was an amazing experience. You can't really get an appreciation for how massive and powerful the falls there are unless you are there. More than 6 million cubic feet of water go over the falls every minute. (Niagara Facts)

As part of the long road trip, we passed through West Virginia where Steve served his mission for the LDS church. He hadn't been back in West Virginia for any length of time since his mission. The family enjoyed stopping at Cooper's Rock State Park, which provides a dramatic overlook of the Cheat River Gorge.

The family also stopped at the New River Gorge Bridge and Overlook. Jessica had quite an experience going over the bridge, which straddles the New River for 3,030 feet and sits at 876 feet above it. Jessica has always been quite fearful of driving along heights. She was challenged, though, to keep her eyes open as we crossed the bridge and really pay attention to what we were doing. The intent was to help her realize what she accomplished, and it worked. Jessica was excited that she was able to get across the bridge without closing her eyes and without being too scared. After she told everyone how happy she was, she declared she wanted to cross it again... later!

The family also made a trip up to the Cincinnati, Ohio area to be at Matthew and Amelia Murdock's wedding reception. As part of the trip, Jessica enjoyed spending her 13th birthday celebration with her Kellar cousins in Dayton, Ohio. The Kellars were gracious as always and went out of their way to bake and cook all kinds of good food.

Benjamin along a creek

Benjamin (16) in high school

Benjamin is really growing up—sometimes to the chagrin of his parents. For example, he was off at Youth Conference in eastern North Carolina when the family went on our long road trip. Unfortunately, due to the timing we had, we realized we would need to be in two places at the same time. Benjamin was very gracious in allowing the family to go on our trip. It was strange, though, to have pictures we took along the way that did not include Benjamin in them. It emphasized the point that it will only be a couple years before Benjamin is off on his own mission for the church and then on to college.

Benjamin has expressed his appreciation for his family, especially for sisters who are so willing to help.

The experience at Youth Conference was memorable for him. There were over 1,500 other LDS youth from 10 stakes across North Carolina and from Columbia South Carolina. Benjamin really appreciated being around so many other LDS youth who share the same values. He also enjoyed the conversion story that retired NBA basketball player, Thurl Bailey, shared with the youth.

At the beginning of the summer, Benjamin (and Dad) headed to Cumberland Island for a week-long scout camp with his troop. The island is off the Georgia coast nearly to the Florida border. The island is both remote and historical. We hiked in three miles to our camp. Initially, this was quite a hike for our fledgling group of hikers. However, after several ten mile hikes for Benjamin (and some of the other scouts) the hikes got much easier. It didn't hurt that Cumberland Island is one of the easiest places to hike as the elevation is completely flat.

Historically, Cumberland Island, Georgia's largest barrier island, has passed from its aboriginal origins some millennia ago to the Spanish missionaries in the 16th century, to James Oglethorpe who built the first forts there, and up through Thomas and Lucy Carnegie in the 1880's. After several more decades the island is now largely a national park though there are still some private residences on the island. The island shows some of its historical past through ruined mansions left behind and feral horses that have been protected on the island.

Martha and Steve-Peter Whitmer Farm

Martha in nursing program

After a couple years of working at finishing prerequisites, Martha was accepted into the nursing program at Blue Ridge Community College. Many of the courses along the way have been challenging, but this first semester of the program brought some more anxiety for Martha. She persevered though and did well.

Part of the program has been to do clinicals (following a nurse) at Pardee Hospital and Carolina Village. It has provided her with good experience.

Martha has enjoyed watching Carolyn grow up. We may be biased, but we think she is a joyful, spirited and intelligent young lady. (Carolyn describes herself as a 'teenager.') Martha is grateful that Carolyn has so much fun spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Collier while Mommy is away at school

Martha was really instrumental in getting Tom settled in Asheville. We are all grateful that he has taken so well to getting established here.

Steve getting older ;-) and working hard

Steve is really grateful for good health — physically and emotionally. He has been working hard at getting back in shape through strength training and yoga.

This year Steve has enjoyed spending time with family. He went to scout camp and hiking with Benjamin,who passed off his hiking merit badge this year. Of course, he also really enjoyed going on the road trip with the family.

Through a lot of time and hard work, Steve is really grateful that the house has been painted. He's also grateful for the new windows that have been installed. The house has really taken on a new look through all of this.

We are all grateful for good friends, a beautiful place to live, and a loving Savior who blesses us amply.

To all: a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Love, the Garvin family