106. Family Trip

Events, Family 0

I’m going to California tonight!  My niece is getting married on Friday.  I’ll get to spend time with many of my 13 siblings and see several nieces and nephews and spend time with my dear friend Ruth.

This feels like a bonus trip, since I went to see family in Oregon in May — because I was interviewing for a job out there.  Normally, I wouldn’t have spent the money for two trips, but that was a good excuse.

I have an overwhelmingly large family.  There are some good things about living on the other side of the country where the only Hatch most people know is me.

But it is also a huge treat to get to spend time with them.  This is going to be a lovely trip.

105. My Dad’s Award

Events, Family 0

Last night I got to hear my Dad speak and see him receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chappell Natural Philosophy Society!

It worked out great — they were supposed to start dinner at 6:00, which was when I got off work, about an hour away.  It turned out they started dinner at more like 7:30 — so I was right on time.  I got to have some food and hear my Dad speak.

This is a group for “dissident scientists.”  They encourage critical thinking and no hero worship.  My Dad by no means agrees with all of them, but they listen to him, and some do good work.

In his talk, he presented why his own theory is a much better fit with GPS data than Einstein’s Special and General Relativity Theory.

He is currently calling his theory TESLA — The Elastic Solid Lorentzian Aether.  It’s catchier, and I can finally remember it!

His theory explains the data better (and my Dad knows GPS data) and resolves paradoxes.  In this theory, alas for fiction writers, time travel is not even theoretically possible.

 

 

104. Seeing Planets

Events 0

We had a very cool program at the library yesterday.  Astronomer Kevin Manning spoke to the kids and brought his big telescope for them to look through.

Unfortunately, we didn’t realize the sun wouldn’t go down until 8:45 pm — with the library closing at 9:00.

Fortunately, I was the one responsible for closing the library last night, so I could make an exception for stargazers.

And along the way, I got to see Mars, and the moons of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn.

Tremendously cool!

 

103. God Speaking in a Sunday Sermon

Events, Spiritual Blessings 0

I love it when a Sunday sermon has a message that is so precisely what I needed to hear, it seems pretty clear that God was using it to speak to me.

This morning that happened.

I won’t go into detail, but I was thinking that how God has worked things out for good in the past tells me I can certainly trust Him with my future.

That’s pretty much what the sermon was about — with some additional specific details that resonated.

But this is by no means the first time this has happened.

And it’s a blessing.

102. Family Math Games

Activities, Events, Libraries 0

I’m proud of our Family Math Games program at the library, because it was my idea to make lots of games available to families, one Saturday a month, and ask only that at least one parent plays with their kids.

And it just makes me happy when it works!

Today I had ten different groups of parents and children playing together.  The kids were learning, and everyone was having fun.

Few things make me happier than hearing a parent teach their kid a concept playfully and lovingly.  I heard kids practicing counting and strategy.  I saw a little girl happily driving a pink car to grandma’s house using shape cards.  I saw older kids helping younger kids figure something out.

Their smiling faces when they brought a game back and looked for a new one made my day.

It was beautiful and reminded me that I really do have an awesome job.

It also reminded me of when our family used to regularly play Monopoly Jr. together after dinner most evenings.  It was so fun to get to see a roomful of other families having that same experience.

And it was slightly sweeter because my youngest is about to move out and start his adult life on the other side of the country.  This is a good thing — He has grown up and is spreading his wings.  But it makes me happy that I can take something our family did that was great for our young kids and spread it to other families.  Even the ones who already would be playing games with their kids have new games here to try out.

 

100. Old Pictures

Events, Family 0

Lately, on my Sonderjourneys blog, I’ve been posting Project 52 — 52 weeks of posts covering the 52 years of my life.

I had run out of pictures — and this weekend, my Dad scanned in pictures for me of when I was 4 to 6 years old.

And they are so much fun to look at!  So many things I’d forgotten came flooding back — down to details of clothes I wore and toys I loved to play with.  Many of the memories I had no idea went back that far — because when you’re 4 years old you don’t think about the date a lot.  But my Mom carefully noted the month on each picture, so now I know, for example, that we found our cat Zenie when I was 3 years old.

And I’d forgotten all about that toy camera I found so very fascinating!  I was ready to take an abundance of pictures even then.

99. Wildflowers

Nature 0

When I get out of the habit of posting blessings, I start to think they need to be for big, momentous things.

But the point of doing this blog was to remember to be grateful every day.

So today I’m picking something small and wonderful — all the many wildflowers that bloom beside my lake.  Each day there are different ones blooming.  And they are beautiful.