Words of a King

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. -- "Stride Toward Freedom," 1958.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. -- "Strength to Love," 1963.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. -- "Strength to Love," 1963.


Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. -- "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. -- "Strength to Love," 1963.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. -- "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. -- "I Have a Dream," civil rights march on Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963. (Source: The New York Times)


Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals. -- "Why We Can't Wait," 1964.

Blessings

• My sister Sara, and brother-in-law Ethan who both celebrated birthdays this week.
  
  
• Our new snow blower. We've gotten so much snow this week. Its been nice, for Cori especially, not to have to shovel our long driveway. We have had to use it multiple times in the same day more than once.
  
  
• The nap I got this afternoon. We had a rough night last night, and all of us took a snooze as soon as we got home from the Branch potluck. Mine was a little longer than the rest thanks to my sweet man who got up with the kids.
  
  
• The two day blizzard that has made for a cozy weekend at home.

let's hear it for the boy

Cori atop Buenos Aires

I just have to give a little shout out to my man. Here are a few of the latest reasons I'm totally crazy for this guy:

• He calls me at least twice a day. I always get a call when he takes his lunch and when he's on his way home. Even if he's running late to a meeting he takes a minute to call and see how my day has been.
  
  

• Once he's home and has gotten kisses from his girls he goes straight into daddy duty. I'm usually just getting dinner on the table which means that Gracie and Grant are both fussy and needing attention because I'm not able to give it to them (you know how that goes?). Cori puts down his bag and dives right in.



• He pressures me to spend money on myself. I don't spend a lot on my clothes--mostly because I've spent the last two and a half years either pregnant or nursing and I don't want to buy the nice stuff I'd like until I'm going to be a more regular shape. But last summer he got an award at work that had a happy check attached to it. Cori cashed the check and put half of the money in an envelope and gave it to me with the explicit directions that it was not to be spent on anything but clothes for myself. Then, right after we moved here he claimed a bunch of reward points from his credit card and surprised me with gift cards to spend on clothes and a lovely check to put into our DSLR camera fund.



• We've spent a lot of time talking and laughing lately. That sounds kind of trite, but it gets really easy to fall into the same conversations; kids, church, work, the house, the house, the house, money... But we have spent a lot of time talking about different things lately. We talk about scriptures at night when we read. We talk a lot about politics. We talk about other random things that we've seen or read about during the day. I don't feel like a housewife when we have time alone. I feel like the more interesting person I was when he and I started dating.
  
  
• He's been really patient with me lately. The other day he held his tongue when I told him that there would be a late fee at the video store he was going to. The fee was completely my fault, and things like that are a pet peeve for him, I know. He started to say something about it, and then stopped and just gave me a smile. It really meant a lot to me.

Wordless Wednesday: Grant, 2 Weeks old

Today in Michigan

It is polling day

Blessings

• Staying at home. Being a stay at home mom is pretty great on the whole. But there are some days that I'm completely head over heels in love with what I get to do everyday. I'm so grateful that it has worked for us so that I can be at home full-time.
  
  
• The new year. Christmas is packed away. Thank you's have been sent off. Resolutions have been penned. I'm ready.
  
  
• There was 1/2 of a day this week that our laundry hampers, laundry baskets, washer and dryer were EMPTY! All clothes clean and put away for nearly 6 hours... until Grant had a blow out, and I changed Gracie into her PJ's.
  
  
• Normalcy. The kids are back into their schedules. We are all of us getting a lot more sleep. And with no travel plans scheduled at all for '08 so far (its actually the first time since before we became engaged that I can remember not having travel plans), its looking like the scenario will go undisturbed for a while.

Some Recomendations

NUMB3RS- on CBS

This is a show that I watched on DVD during our six weeks with out TV. Its a really smart crime show that has almost no explicit violence, and almost no s*xual content. I really enjoy crime drama. I LOVE Law and Order. But we swore off SVU a long time ago because it made us feel yucky afterwords, and if the crime involves a child I'm most likely turning it off. What I like to learn about is the process- not the gory details of the horrid things people do to each other. This show fits that criteria. And though I'm not a math person (at all) its still very interesting because the math principals are explained and related in complete layman's terms. And there are a lot of really nice and fun (and, again, nons*xual) relationships among the main characters. I haven't watched this season at all. The season I rented was the first or the second.



Stardust

We heart this movie! It was such a fun fairytale fantasy adventure. I'm not a huge Claire Danes fan, but Michelle Pfeiffer is ethereally perfect, and Robert DeNiro is hilarious. Its got a sweetly romantic story line full of quirky little sequences. More than once at the end of a scene, Cori and I would look at each other with the same smiley "What in the world?!" Visually, the film gave me a familiar ache. It captures the English countryside just how I remember it. (Sorry these pics are so puny)

Marie Antoinette

I was so impressed with this movie. The historical accuracy of costumes and locations was so compelling. I loved seeing Versailles full of people dressed in period wear. And it was nice seeing some furniture in Le Petit Trianon. When we were there last year, a couple of the buildings in the Domain of Marie Antoinette were starkly barren. I also loved Coppola's treatment of Antoinette's story. The movie felt like living through a teenager's perspective--a perspective so appropriate because Marie Antoinette was practically a child when she came to France from Austria.