Number 23: Read Some Classics

I decided that I wanted to read a couple of classics.  It started with Dracula.  I don't know why.  I think it was around Halloween and it was free on my Kindle so I thought why not.  So I started to read it.  It was alright but I learned a couple of things.  When writers wrote in the 1800's they really take a long time to tell the story.  There are things in the book that you think will be important in the future of the book and then those things don't really come up again.  With Dracula, the first was REALLY scary, when Dracula held the guy in his broken down castle and then the guy saw him climbing up and down the outside walls, that was seriously a little scary.  Then the book travels to England and a couple of women get infected and then there is a crazy guy as part of the story and it takes forever to develop.  When they figure out that it is Dracula and follow him back to Transylvania I am thinking that there will be a big climax and scene where they capture and kill Dracula.  So another endless amount of pages about the journey and following Dracula to his castle, then in about two pages they find Dracula in his coffin asleep and stab him with no problems and Dracula was gone.  I wasn't impressed.  I did learn that Stephanie Meyers did really stay close with the original characteristics of a vampire though. 

The next classic I read was Frankenstein.  I did read this one in high school and remembered feeling really sorry for Frankenstein trying to live and love in a society that abhorred him.  So I was interested again to read that.  I have to say the second time, I still felt really sad for Frankenstein but he was more violent that I remembered against the guy who made him.  I regress, Frankenstein was the guy who created him and he was just a monster without a name.  I did enjoy the book.  It really gives a perspective of a situation that a person can create in which they have no control once they make that initial choice.  Then the monster wanted acceptance and love even from his creator and never being able to obtain that.  Really kinda a tragedy but I liked it.  I am always fascinated that it was written by a women too.  I wonder what inspired her to write it.  

The third was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  I have never read this one and actually hated the story.  The only version I can stand to watch is the muppets.  It was a choice of Phyllis at book club for December.  I came to find out later that she wanted it because her other book club was doing it and she wanted to double dip so to speak.  She also compared it to Elder Uchtdorf's talk about no regrets.  I will make the comparison at the end of the post.  Anyway so I though why not.  So I started it and it is really good.  I love the written story about a million times more than any movie version of it.   Dickens is a really fabulous writer.  He just captures the human spirit.   I found myself wanting to highlight and remember certain passages of it and I hardly ever do that anymore.  I am going to read more of his works just because I loved A Christmas Carol and his writing so much.  

Going back to Elder Uchtdorf's talk of No Regrets in comparison to A Christmas Carol.  The three things that Scrooge needed to do were the three things that Elder Uchtdorf said we should do in life.  Scrooge needed to spend time with people who he loved.  He needed to get to know his nephew and nephew's family.  Scrooge needed to live up to his potential.  He had all this money but wasn't doing anything with it.  He wasn't being who he could be.  Third, Scrooge needed to let himself be happy.  He was always just being Scrooge and not allowing himself to enjoy life and the people around him.  So it was a great book to read and start out the Christmas season for me.  I wish I could claim the credit for coming up with the Uchtdorf comparison but I have to give Phyllis the credit for that.  In her other book club she make up book markers and printed off a bound copy of the General Conference with that particular talk.  She really went all out as only Phyllis can do.   Number 23....check!

Number 31 Learn to make Pumpkin Pie

My mom makes really good pumpkin pies and I really have never had to know the skill.  However I figured that I am now old enough to see if I could do it.  So during Thanksgiving I asked for crust making lessons.  My mom has made so many pies that her lesson is to put about 'this much shortening in' and then 'about this much flour' and then cold water.  The cold water is 'hold the bowl under the faucet' and 'one time in, two times in, and a third time in and that is about right'.  So needless to say it is hard to duplicate her crusts.  My home teacher, Bro Ange, said that his wife loves pumpkin pies and they usually just get the frozen ones, which in my mind is as gross as you can get, because pumpkin happens to be my favorite and I can't even eat the Costco ones, just the homemade for me and really just my moms.   So I thought I am going to make him and her a pie.  So I got all the ingredients and went for it.  The crust as I was making it looked about right so put it in the pie pan and put the filling in and started baking it.  I had quite a bit of the crust dough left so make crust, which is the leftover dough flattened out and then butter and sugar and cinnamon and bake it.  So that baked and I pulled it out and to me it didn't taste good so I thought the pie would be a flop to.  So the pie finished baking and I pulled it out but I didn't try it because I was disappointed because I thought that the crust didn't work out.  Then the next day I thought I should try the pie just to see if the filling at least tasted good.  So I cut a small piece out and ate the pie crust included, and miracle of miracles, it tasted good.  The crust even did.  I was so excited.  Now it wasn't as good as my moms but it was tasty and held together and everything.  So I cut two big pieces out and ran it over to Bro Ange and his wife to try.  I told them I am going to keep practicing and give them a better one when I perfect my crusts.  They were fine with that idea.  

The reason that it took me so long to try to learn to make crusts is when I was about 12ish, my mom wanted me to learn to make bread.  I wasn't really into it and she was so insistent about it.  I kept asking why all the sudden I needed to learn.  She would say because someday she wouldn't be there to make bread and it was something I needed to learn.  I will come back to that story in a minute.  

When I was really young and we read in schools  out of the reader books in a group there was a story about a Navajo kid who needed to finish weaving a cloth, however she didn't want to finish because she knew that when the cloth was finished her grandma would die because the girl would have learned the skill of weaving.  Somehow in my mind the day my mom wanted me to learn to make bread and her insisting that I learn in my mind was the same as that story.  So I figure that if I didn't learn how then she would be there forever.  That thinking continued to other skills that my mom had like making pies.  If I couldn't do it then she would always have to and stay around forever.   I am still a little paranoid but am trying to get beyond it.  I think the lesson I take away from this is some stories that teachers make kids read are not healthy and give kids phobias they spend the rest of their lives trying to overcome.  Unfortunately one story that might effect one kid, another kid probably doesn't even remember.   Through all of this I did make a really tasty pumpkin pie.   So Number 31, make a pumpkin pie...check.