I Love Snow When It's a Novelty

All day long the weather-people were telling us that it was going to snow in Charleston, and all day long I rolled my eyes at them. Yeah, right. The last time it snowed on the coast of South Carolina and actually stuck I was four years old. That's twenty years ago, folks--and it was a freak occurrence even then.

But joke's on me--when I walked outside last night I was shocked to see SNOW piled on the ground and on cars, in tree branches and all over the roads. For a split second it was as if I'd gone back in time to Provo, but there's no mistaking the lowcountry oaks even when hidden beneath the snowflakes.

Now I've been up since 7:30 AM taking pictures and running around in the snow like a little kid. Gotta love the unexpected. :)

By the Citadel campus


Our backyard! CRAZY!

Jillian's super hot snow-woman. I like her colorful hair.

A little tree in our front yard

See how many inches there are!

Down by the battery with some excellent hot chocolate.


Next entry: Snowmen of a Snowless Town--a photo essay on what happens when snow falls in a place with no snow.

Everyone Is A Winner

While I was preparing for a talk I'm giving in church tomorrow, I ran across this quote in one of my old BYU packets from a religion class. It was just too good not to share:

"Don't ever call yourself a loser. Consider the fact that you were once a sperm! You were once with a group of more than five million of you lined up at the starting line. And at the end of a long, long tunnel there was one egg. There was a race!
And you won!

"Don't ever call yourself a loser. The odds were five million to one against you, and you came through. You're a winner! You make the Olympics seem insignificant by comparison. You are here by divine appointment. You are here because God chose you to be a winner in the struggle for existence."

--Tony Compolo

Would You Like To Have My Jacket?

I am currently employed by a retinal specialist and surgeon. I give vision exams and poke people in the eye all day--over and over and over again. I know, I know--it's not what anyone would ever expect me to be doing with my life, myself included, but for now it's paying the bills and keeping me from withering away to nothing. It's not something that I anticipate ever growing to love, and some days my only sanity is knowing that I'll find an escape from it eventually. But I'm very grateful to have a job at all in these times (seriously--who gets laid-off twice before they're even 25?), and I'm actually learning a lot, albeit about things I never really had an interest in. :)


Anyways, one of the most common problems with the retina stems from macular degeneration, which develops with age. For that reason, the majority of our patients are elderly, and it is not uncommon for the "big E" on the sight chart to be a mysterious or even invisible figure to a patient. In addition, a number of our patients are also affected by age in other ways, including difficulty walking and severe hearing loss.


Such was the case of an elderly gentleman who came in for an exam a few weeks ago, his wife of 60+ years in tow. My co-worker took the couple into an exam room to evaluate his vision, and as the minutes passed I could clearly hear her shouting things like "Are you having any vision problems?" and "Can you see the letters on the chart?" at the top of her lungs, repeatedly. Moments later she emerged from the room exasperated, proclaiming that no matter how loudly she spoke, the gentleman was unable to hear her.


"And do you want to know the craziest thing?" she asked me, shaking her head in frustration, "After I scream something at him for fifteen minutes, his wife then repeats it in the softest, gentlest voice in the world, and he answers! Somehow he hears her."


It was a silly situation, but somehow that statement was beautiful to me. It's hard for me to put into words how the thought impacted me. Over sixty years of love, marriage, and friendship had bred a familiarity so intimate that although most sounds of the world had long since stopped penetrating the man's senses, he still could hear her voice.

Somehow he hears her.

Later that day, as the couple waited patiently for the doctor to come into the room, as I was rushing by I overheard the woman say that she felt cold. Her husband asked her to repeat her statement, and she kindly did, in a slightly louder voice that was still anything but a shout.


"Oh," he said when he understood, then without hesitation added: "Would you like to have my jacket?"


That small, tender consideration reinforced my earlier thoughts about the couple. The sweetness of his simple desire to make her feel more comfortable was once again beautiful to me, and made me reflect upon the sweet and simple things that I have in my life. I learned in that instance the power of love and devotion, and also the opportunity that I have to learn and grow every day from every situation. Even though my job is nothing I ever wanted, this, and moments like it, are a highly unexpected silver lining.

Is it November already?

I was thinking the other day about how slowly time used to move when I was a kid. Back then a summer stretched on into oblivion, countless days of sunshine followed by long, lazy nights of moonlit swims and fireflies. A school-year was a lifetime, and goodness knows it was an eternity between Christmases. The future seemed so far away, and all that mattered was what I was doing right then, at every moment. I think that's one of the reasons children are so happy--they live in the moment, never questioning that it's exactly where they should be.


Time doesn't move so slowly anymore. Sometimes I even doubt that it exists at all, because each day seems to superimpose itself right on top of another, blurring all sense of the passage of time. I have to make plans now, to consider each step I take and am forced to recognize that moments are precious and fleeting. It's good in many ways, being "grown-up," because I can appreciate life in a deeper way than I could when I was younger (though to be honest, sometimes I miss the joy of childish simplicity--but only sometimes).


The point of this rambling is that it's already November, which has long been one of my most favorite months of the year. Early November in South Carolina is beautiful, and I've always loved it. October was over in the blink of an eye, and I'm pretty sure that tomorrow it will be Christmas. I'll try to be better about posting to the blog, but let's be honest...it probably won't happen. I'm just not that dedicated.

Anyway, here are some pictures from Halloween--was it really only this past Saturday? Cray-see.

We spent the day at the state park at Fort Dorchester, where I went nuts and climbed trees like I was ten, or like I was a monkey. But I don't like monkeys, they stink and pick bugs and are ugly, so I'll stick with the ten-year-old analogy. I was in a good mood all day after the tree-climbing. It's impossible to be in a bad mood when you've been climbing in the boughs of oak trees all day--especially when the boughs hang over a river. Dad joined in the fun, and he looked like Mowgli shimmying up some of the trees.


Jillian and I also went to a ward Halloween party, and her costume pretty much rocked like the giant wooden-rocking chair upstairs in Granny's house. Mine was more of a last minute "I guess I should dress up" deal, but eh, who cares. It was a good night!

Life & love were easier when we were kids...

My Aunt Cheryl posted this picture on her blog the other day, and I just think it is hilarious. Not the beautiful blond baby sitting on her mom's lap--there's nothing funny about that breathtaking child--but the dark-haired sister sitting next to her cracks me up. Check out the adoring expression as she gazes lovingly at the mountain of toys next to her (particularly at the Cabbage Patch doll). Have you ever seen such a true expression of contentment and happiness?

Seriously, though, I love this picture and everyone in it!

So maybe I'm not the only one.

"...Inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness..."

-- Chopin.

Folly Beach Pharaohs

The ancient Egyptians have got nothing on us.