Why do you live in Alaska?

I get that a lot. I ask myself that a lot. Especially when it becomes freakishly cold for November (20 below 0) and my pipes freeze. And then...my pipes unfreeze, my car starts regardless of the weather, and I look out over my mom's garden and see this:

I start to question my loyalty to Alaska again when the winds are blowing over 50 mph and blow my back door open when it has a box of books and a couch rammed up against it, and it's open for about an hour until I finally wake up to my lilly leaves rattling. But then...I drive to Anchorage and the crazy cold morning is leaving me breathless (when I'm in a warm car - much less usual than my lungs seizing up in rebellion against 15 below air).

Oh. My. Heart. So stunning. And this picture was taken with my iphone, so imagine what it was like in person. Alaska's beauty speaks to my soul. Living near a Whole Foods and an Anthropologie also speak to my soul. But for right now, my soul is content.

Question for Deep Thoughts:

Should a journal be used for venting? If you keep it to pass to future generations, should you only put in uplifting things and vent elsewhere, or do you think your posterity will appreciate the candor and profanity - I mean humanity?

Mi Familia is Spanish for Huge Thanksgiving Dinner

We are so used to these huge gatherings of 40-50 people that we still make enough food for that many people. We only had 17 people for Thanksgiving this year! It was a blast though. Lots of delicious goodness. I used 3 recipes from Our Best Bites: Caramel Apple Cider, Pumpkin Toffee Cheesecake, and Candied Coconut Sweet Potatoes. The sweet potatoes were dairy and gluten free, and so divine. The cheesecake was so very not gluten and dairy free, but also mucho divine. I made up a fruit dip as well, which has been named Heavenly Clouds by the Forbes. It had lemon pudding, cream cheese, and whipping cream (from scratch, of course). The Forbes were right. It was heavenly. I just figured out what my name for it will be: Heavenly Lemonly. That's so almost cool. Here's a video of the spread:

My Aunt Susan Woster flew up from LA for a week. She is so fun to talk to - well read and funny. Grandpa Carlson asked me, "Do you know why you are so beautiful?" I said no. He said, "It's because you smile at your Grandpa." I laughed because we tend to make faces at each other across the table throughout the meals. Those expressions are definitely beauty enhancing. I should teach a class to CoverGirl models. Because, you know, they are worth it.

Anyway, the night ended with a big bang. My mom bought a ton of fireworks from Houston, because it's not illegal to buy them there. Heh heh heh. So we had a huge display of sparkling colorful grandeur. We sang God Bless America, the Cougar fight song, the Kenai fight song, the Alaskan Flag song, and then started in on Christmas carols. Connie led the singing, except when Uncle Bill graced us with his legit Blue Christmas rendition.

I'm so very thankful for family.

Question for Deep Thoughts:

How bad is it for your septic system to use paper towels instead of toilet paper (purely hypothetical)?

It's a girl!!

Okay, so we already knew she was going to be a girl. Frances Noelle Carlson was born yesterday morning at 10:09am in Soldotna, Alaska. Estelle is doing fine and so is baby. Scott said that she hasn't been crying much, and he's hoping she stays that way - all of us were pretty colicky, my mom says. You can check out their pictures by clicking on their blog, Scott and Estelle, at the right side of my blog. I am going home to Alaska Thursday, and am so excited to see Little Franky! I thought I had pinkeye, which would mean I wouldn't get to hold her for a while, but I'm pretty sure it's eyeritis because it's going away quickly without meds. I'll ask my dad to check before holding her. Anyway, I'll stop blabbing and leave you with this thought provoking thought:

Is it better to be a hypocrite (someone who says they are one way or will do certain things and then acts differently) than someone who admits their faults but doesn't change them? If the end result is the same, people get hurt? Just something I've thought on for a long time. Me being the admitting type.

Infamous Cookie Weekend

Cookie Weekend! It starts Friday night and ends late Sunday. Over 20 kinds of cookies are made and Leslie makes over 30 bags and then some baskets of cookies to give away. People tell her that it's ironic that a Jewish woman makes the best Christmas cookies. We listened to Christmas music, too! How cool is that? Sorry the video isn't the greatest quality, but you get to meet Leslie, the mom of the house I'm living in, and the kitchen. It's really a great kitchen, especially for LA. The cookies above are double dipped peanut butter - dark and milk chocolate - delish! Saturday night the oven door on the top oven broke. Good timing, huh? We used a bungie cord to keep it closed, but it kept overheating so we had a hard time not burning cookies. A new double oven is being installed tomorrow - the last one lasted over 20 years, not bad.

Criticizing radical Islam? I'll see you in jail!

Ok, it's not a law quite yet, but the universal law against criticizing Islam, urged on by Saudi King Abdullah, has already passed in a key committee in the UN by 85-50. The General Assembly is expected to pass this law, which would force countries like ours to change our criminal code accordingly. Saudi Arabia doesn't even have religious freedom, and we are supposed to go to jail for criticizing radical Islam?!

With the recent terrorist attack in India I was watching the news for days, wondering who was responsible. Why didn't the news stations tell us that the terrorists told Indian TV that they were protecting muslim interests? That the terrorists shouted, 'Allahu Akhbar!', while shooting people? That Turkish hostages that yelled, 'We are muslim!' were spared while the Christians next to them were shot? Umm, yep, I'm not totally sure so I won't announce positively that they are radical Islamist terrorists, in fact, I'm just going to tell the world that we don't know who is responsible but that the Pakistani government condemns the attacks. Why do I have to scrounge around on the internet to find these details that I should be getting from major TV news stations and newspapers?

And get this: Husain Haqqani, the distinguished scholar presently serving as Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S., wrote in 2006 about the group which sent the killers to Mumbai :
"The most significant jihadi group of Wahabi persuasion is Lashkar-e-Taiba (The Army of the Pure) founded in 1989 by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani intelligence services, Lashkar-e-Taiba became the military wing of Markaz al-Dawa wal-Irshad (Center for the Call to Righteousness). Saeed created a large campus and training facility at Muridke, outside the Pakistani metropolis of Lahore." ("The 'Islamophobia' canard after Mumbai", by Joel J. Sprayregen)

Poor Pakistan, poor Saudi Arabia, let's not criticize militaristic religion that wants to wipe out everyone who believes differently, let's be sure not to offend by helping them along. This doesn't mean that all muslims are radical or that all Pakistani or Saudi's are radical. I'm sure there are many Pakistani's who have criticized radical Islam. Of course, you can't ask for proof, because they are dead.

Walt Disney World!!!

These pictures are a year old, but they are so much fun I had to post them. And since I am still fighting wakefulness, even with Nyquil, I have the time to post old pictures. We have sort of a family tradition going to meet Deven and Sharyn's family and whoever else is able to make it (Susan Woster, Hans Carlson, Teddy, etc) in Orlando, rent a house, and play at DisneyWorld. Hey Marcel, we should meet you and Candice there! His family has a condo in Orlando. Anyway, this trip was so much fun as we bonded with cousins. One of my favorites was a spa day my mom and Grammie and I had. To DIE for. A full body mud wrap = $#*, full massage = $&#*, eating lunch in only a robe with no make-up on and hair crusted with mud while hotel guests go on guided tours of the spa. . . = PRICELESS.

Dirty = Clean. Seriously. It's proven.

I read an article in the Economist where studies showed that people who are physically dirty tend to have a more ethical view than those that are clean. It sounds like the scriptures, right? Where bad will be made to seem good. But this is cool! So people who are physically clean have an easier time rationalizing bad stuff. There was another study where a group was shown a few minutes of 'Trainspotters' which makes most people feel disgust and was then given the ethics questionairre. The group who watched 'Trainspotters' right before took a harder line on ethics than the group that didn't. This totally makes sense to me. How many of us have seen a scary movie or talked about people doing evil things and then felt a strong need to read scriptures and completely stay away from anything not cheerful, happy, or righteous?

This raises some very interesting questions about motive. If someone does something bad multiple times, how likely is it that they don't know it's wrong? And the further someone goes down a wrong path it's likely that what he/she is doing seems more and more wrong. I mean, in the studies the people weren't even doing something wrong themselves! They were exposed to others doing wrong.

Another question. If people who are physically unclean have a lower tolerance for unethical behaviour, does that mean that people in 3rd world countries or people who are camping have an innately higher code of ethics?

In another article in the Economist studies showed that people are much more likely to litter, steal, walk across grass they aren't supposed to if their surroundings are disorderly. For example, if there is a bunch of litter and graffiti on the wall, people were more likely to throw the flyer they received on their bike on the ground. What kind of impact do our messes have at home and work and school? I wonder if there is also a correlation between messy behaviour like being late, not going to church, eating crappy, not exercising and our other behaviours or other people's behaviors. Does this include pets? I wonder if this reasoning is why the military is so strict on cleanliness. If so, what a crack up it would be to find that the behaviour of officers and soldiers is more important than the bed being made correctly. Maybe what our military needs is someone whose discipline style is closer to Joan of Arc's than the average staff sergeant.

I think the same study should be done in regards to swearing, wearing modest clothing, etc. How interesting, hmm?

Post reading is optional.

Family and Friends, of whom there are so very many, please do not feel obligated to read all of my posts as they are lengthy, wordy, and full of wit and wisdom. . . and long. I will not quiz you as to their content unless I am particularly proud of a pithy turn of phrase. . . or whatever. To quote Steven, if you say you looked at my blog I will not say, 'Prove it!'

Commuting. It's totally cerebral.

After almost two months of commuting an hour every day (which for LA is REALLY good), I finally signed up on audible.com. Leslie, the mom of the family I live with, listens to at least two books a month and gave me the idea. I can't handle fiction books on CD, but AHA! books are great. I started listening to Thomas Paine's 'The Rights of Man'. Amazing. He's writing a response geared toward George Washington that is a rebuttal to Edmund Burke's book on the French revolution. Dang, the damage people could do back then with words. I find myself, after a particularly cutting remark on Burke, chanting, 'Served! Served! Served!' Burke seemed to think that individuals didn't have rights, that the English government didn't think they had rights, because in 1680 there was a revolution and the people signed away their rights and their posterity's rights. Good one. I'd go for that. Thanks great-granddad. :) Paine goes through Burke's book and points out all of the errors, omissions, and flat out lies. I love it when you get something like that, especially in today's society, because most of what I read and hear show a certain point of view until I read something that discredits that point of view and it makes so much more sense.

I was thinking that it might be this way for people who are converts to church. They are taught certain teachings their whole lives, and they aren't necessarily bad teachings, they usually make sense. And then they hear the truth and it just rings true. 'Aha! That's what I've been missing my whole life!!' :)

'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell

This man is amazing. Have you read his other books, 'The Tipping Point' and 'Blink'? These are some of my favorite AHA! books. You know, books where you're reading and you suddenly have a completely new perspective on something and your jaw drops and you say, 'Aha!' Well, I usually say, 'Oh my gosh, that is so interesting! I never thought of it that way!' Over and over I say it with his books.

One of my favorite points is that there is no such thing as a person being completely self-made, overcoming all obstacles on his/her own to achieve greatness. Timing is crucial. Lucky breaks are huge. For instance, it is rare for professional hockey or soccer players to be born in the second half of the year. They start programs while young, and the kids who are half a year or more older than the other kids are put in the advanced programs and so get more coaching and more practice, and it just snowballs. A large majority of professional athletes are born in the 3-4 months right after the cut off date of kids programs. So if you want your future kid to play hockey, plan some great 'together' time in the spring.

This book made me think of Heavenly Father's plans for us and how he sets things up so we have opportunities, but it's up to us to take them. All of the people who have been crazy successful are talented and smart, but they worked their tails off to get to where they are. This book also talks about the 10,000 hour rule - how it takes that many hours to truly become an expert on something. Bill Gates had 10,000 hours of programming in before his big break, and the Beatles had the hours before they went huge, and Mozart had 10,000 hours of playing and composing before he composed what critics consider to be masterpieces. How cool is that? Even child prodigies follow the 10,000 hour rule. So any of us can be amazing if we choose to work that hard - it may not follow that we'll have opportunities to change the world or for fame, however. While reading I was also reminded of a quote by Sun Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, who said, 'Opportunities multiply as they are seized.' I love that quote. And I love Malcolm Gladwell's books.