Update on My Goals

I thought it would help motivate me if I gave an update on the progress of my New Year's goals every once in a while.  This has been a good month so far.
Goal #1.  In three weeks on the Rotation diet, I lost 12 pounds.  Fred lost 11 pounds so we both feel good about our dieting.  It does make it easier when both of us are dieting.  Since the Rotation Diet is basically a three week diet, we decided to go on the South Beach diet which cuts way down on the carbs.  The hardest thing for me to give up was fruit.  After two weeks though we can start putting the fruit back in carefully so I'm trying to be real strict with the diet until then.
Goal #2.  I have read the New Testament through Romans and last week I started to read the Book of Mormon after a "Read the Book of Mormon in a Hundred Days" challenge.  So I'm reading the New Testament and the Book of Mormon concurrently.  I am so thankful I am doing so since I am gaining insights through my reading.  I am also reading Bruce R. McConkie's, Mortal Messiah, which is enlarging my knowledge of these Standard Works.
Goal #3. I have written over a hundred pages of my autobiography.  In fact, I'm up to 1996.  Soon I'll start writing about the "winter" of my life.
As far as other goals are concerned.  Let's see. . .
Family History projects:  1) I'm starting to sync my database in Legacy with newfamilysearch, now that Legacy is in full sync with the church database in newfamilysearch.  This will be an ongoing project that will probably take months if not years to complete.  2) On Saturday, January 15, Fred and I met my first cousin five times removed in the Arizona Temple to do the sealings for our common 3rd great grandparents, Stephen Thomas Williams, Sr. and his wife, Lucy.  This cousin and I have talked on the phone and emailed over several months and finally met to do the work.  3) This past week, I have found some first cousins four times removed.  Our common 2nd great grandparents are Lewis R. Rue and Rachel F. Weeden.  I have been corresponding by email with LeRoy Miller and his sister Kathy Dyas who live in Idaho.  LeRoy and his wife are temple workers in the Boise Idaho Temple.  It has been exciting to find more relatives who are members of the church.
Learn how to use my new camera effectively: I started an online class yesterday and went out this morning and experimented with taking pictures using different shutter speeds, F-stops and ISO settings. It really is lots of fun. The pictures that follow are part of my experimentation.                                    
I was working of focusing Fred in the foreground and blurring the background.  Now I've got to position my subject better so the sun isn't on one side of his face.

For those of you who understand I was shooting this at 1/320 seconds (shutter speed) and f/7.1.  I wanted to keep the cactus sharp so you can see individual needles yet also have the wisp of clouds in the sky.  I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.

If you didn't know this was shot on a sunny day in the Arizona desert, you might think this is snow and ice.  I shot it at 1/8000 second at f/5.6 and an ISO of 1250.  I was really pleased with this shot but you have to know I took about thirty pictures at all kinds of setting just experimenting to see what I could do.  Now compare the pictures below at different settings.  This is so much fun.

 Shutter 1/400 s at f/5.6 ISO 100

 Shutter 1/800 s at f/5.0 ISO 200

Shutter 1/30 s at f/25.0 ISO 100

 Shutter 1/30 s at f/20.0 ISO 100

1/8000 s at f/5.6 ISO 2000

I love the shadows and the light in these two pictures and how the water can have a very different

look all depending on the settings.

A few days ago we got our Church News in the mail and what sweet memories it brought back.  This very church that you can see in the picture was where the missionaries took me to Primary when my parents were investigating the Church.  I was three years old at the time.  This was the same chapel we worshipped in after my parents were baptized in 1946 and the old Binghampton Ward was where I grew up and developed a budding testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The cultural hall and kitchen were in the basement of this chapel and what precious memories it evokes. This was where my mother learned to make green corn tamales from the sisters who had fled from the colonies in Mexico years previously.  At Christmas time, Santa Claus could be heard clumping down the stairs as we sang carols loudly so he could find his way.  Ward parties held in this basement always had many gallons of delicious homemade ice cream, some of which was made in a 5-gallon freezer--hand cranked, of course.  I have never seen a freezer of that size since that time.  In the early 1960's the building was remodeled, the basement closed off and a new cultural hall and kitchen build along with some classrooms.  This meant the end of the church-owned olympic sized swimming pool in back of the chapel and also the end of the outdoor baptismal font where I was baptized.  I was so glad that during the remodeling that the chapel was left much the same especially the stained glass window of Christ kneeling by a rock in prayer in Gethsemane which had been placed high up on the wall behind the podium.  (Picture at top of this post.)  It was beside this podium that I was blessed as an older child and it was near this same podium that three of my grandchildren from two daughters have been blessed:  Christian, Miriam and Samuel.  This was the chapel where my father's funeral services were held.  It was here that I attended stake dances with my future husband.  It had never really dawned on me until yesterday, how important this building is to me and that legacy which has been carried through to the fourth generation even though I moved from the old Binghampton area many years ago. 

A New Year: Time for a New Beginning

After making our own pizzas last night about 7:30 after Christian got off work and then eating them, I decided it is time for a new beginning.  Christian was practicing his pizza dough tossing.  So my New Year's goals are:

1. Monday, Fred and I will start on the Rotation diet and follow it precisely, including 8 glasses of water and at least 1.5 hours of exercise per day.  The diet says you will lose a pound a day.  I'll be happy with 3-4 pounds a week.  I've got to lose my "holiday pounds."  I'm very glad I have kept exercising on a 5 day a week schedule for several years.  Otherwise I would hate to think how many pounds I would have to lose, now it is sort of like just a "tune-up."
2. I will finish reading the New Testament, and read the Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon.  My goal is to have read all the standard works in two year's time.  The Old Testament and Pearl of Price and a start on the New Testament happened last year.  I have been taking notes and marking verses that are meaningful to me that I haven't previous marked.
3. I will finish writing my autobiography and figure out how to publish it.

Of course there are many other things I hope to accomplish, like continuing to work on family history research, attend the temple regularly, make some more DVD's, read a few good books, and visit our children and grandchildren.