Young and Wild

Our Rodeo-Medford weekend, in photos

 

  

 
 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a great weekend! And these were just the highlights from the weekend! We drove home to Derick's hometown for their rodeo weekend. It is such a blast seeing the rodeo and spending time where time itself seems to slow down. Even among the chores and work that needs to get done, there is time to sit back, relax and reflect.
-LD

Book Review: The Help

I just finished reading The Help By Kathryn Stockett.

Brief overview of the book:
The Book takes place in 1962, Jackson, Mississippi. It unravels the relationships and the roles of being a black maid, looking after the families of the town's white women. The love between the maids and the children and the struggle between classes and defining lines between them.


I admire one of the main characters of the book - Skeeter (Eugena) Phalen. In the book, she is a 22-year old graduate from Ole Miss who longs to be a writer. After graduation, she returns home to her mother, who will not be satisfied until she is married.


Another one of the main characters in the book is Aibileen - a black maid who is wise and regal, raising her 17th white child. She is such a strong character and the author does a really great job of bringing them to life off the page.


In the book, throughout the course of events, Skeeter requests the help of Aibileen and other maids to tell their stories of the white women they work for. They change the names, but the stories stay true to the things they have lived through. Once the book is published on a short run, it slowly gains momentum and spreads across town. The maids guarded by their secrets, as well as being set free. The book tells a universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t, and the decisions we make to daily choose between them.


My Take:
I really enjoyed this book. At first, I was a little daunted by how large it seemed - close to 600 pages, but I dug in, mainly because I enjoyed the movie so much, and I had not had the chance to read the book beforehand. I am so glad I did. I love the characters in the book - there are such strong personalities that really come to life and I could easily imagine them myself, albeit the movie helped plunk people into their roles for the most part, although a couple of the characters from the movie cast differed from the book descriptions of them. I thought the book Skeeter and Hilly would have looked different than what the movie characters looked like. It does make me want to see the movie again and compare and pick up things I may have missed the first time. 

Batter UP

Recently I was sitting at my desk at work, like any ordinary morning, when one of the Marketing gentlemen came over to our area and called myself and my coworker over. He said that he had 4 tickets to the Twins game that night - two rows above the Twin's dugout! He asked if we wanted them! I called/texted/emailed Derick to see if he wanted to/could go with me that night. Here is what we saw:

My Work in Print

So, as you know, I volunteer with the ADA and their Walk, Camp, Gala and most recently, their Tour de Cure (biking event). I am volunteering with the Marketing group for the Tour and I have been working with some existing elements to design ads for magazines, posters for some local colleges, as well as an ad for the Metro Transit buses! I was told that the bus insert would be debuting this month - but the "go-live" date was a bit fuzzy. So I

So, you can imagine my excitement when I looked up and saw this little beauty peeking down at me from the back of a bus on my way into work earlier this month!!

Although it was mostly working with pre-established elements, it was still pretty cool to see a piece that I helped create up there for all of the metro area bus riders to see!! So, although it wasn't solely my work, I think I can give a nod to my Bucket List's item #21 as being partially crossed off!

I showed a couple of my work friends the ad and told them to keep their eyes open for it on their buses as well. One of them said the next day they saw one and have seen one on every bus since! Exciting!

There you have it - a few of the different posters from various buses I have ridden in lately.