The "Daddy of the Day" Award Goes to...

Michael! Yes, folks he wins the prize for two astounding feats of love and talent.



Michael felt bad that Rachel was having to go around with everything blurry, so he ran over to the opticians on his lunch break with her broken glasses. The glasses were still under warranty, so the manager popped the lenses into a similar frame. Michael decided to take them right home rather than wait until after work, so Rachel could do what she loves best...read!
You will also notice in the photo that Rachel is popping a piece of fudge in her mouth, but it isn't just any fudge folks! NO! It is PERFECT FUDGE! Michael promised the kids that on Family Home Evening he would make fudge. True to his promise this confectionary miracle was brought forth! This morning Noah said..."Mom, you've got to try these! But ya' know his brownies are just as good!"





_{paper frame by Sausan, arrow doodles by Kate Hadfield}

:::::::::::::::Rachel Got Caught::::::::

reading that is! A little while after Michael went back to work and I was putting away laundry I saw that Aaron's bedroom door was closed. I wondered if the kids had taken Jasper the ferret into play. I cautiously opened the door and Rachel was lying on the floor next to the bedroom window. She gave me a guilty look. I laughed at her when I realized she was reading ahead in our family reading book. I told her she could continue reading if she promised not to tell anyone what she read, didn't look board during reading time and didn't read the ending first. With her word given I went to call my mom and Michael to quiz them what they thought Rachel might be caught doing. My mom just laughed and Michael said reading right away. I love that bookish girly!

::::::::::::::Will Try Again:::::::

today to upload vacation photos to our family website. The photos are on Michael's laptop and he takes it with him to work and by the time he got home I had to run off to the store and buy school supplies, then home for family time and there is this thing called "SLEEP" calling my name. So, perhaps today will be the day?!?!



****Warning: Serious post ahead!

::::::::::::::The Lucifer Effect::::::::

I have only been able to finish the first chapter, so far, but I am so impressed with the well thought out and expertly presented material in this book. Phillip Zimbardo ask two questions that he wants the reader to ask themselves in the first chapter. The first question is: "Am I capable of Evil?". The second question comes at the end of the chapter: "Are you capable of becoming a hero?".

Zimbardo used M.C. Esher's "Circle Limit IV also titled "Devils and Angels" to illustrate the point that there are good and evil co-exist.
He also makes the point with the illustration that angels can become devils and that devils can become angels. He looks at the world through a situational lens as opposed to a dispositional one. He sees the dispositional lens limiting because it looks for the root cause within an individual instead of looking at the situational variables that act on someone that inturn creates behaviors.

He pointed out that using the word "animal" to describe another human being effectively dehumanizes them and then what what happens to them by your own hand, or that of another is of no consequence. And disturbingly a person only has to over hear someone else make a reference to a person or group as an "animal" for it to change their mindset. Zimbardo uses examples from the atrocities in Rwanda and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to explain how quickly murder, rape and humilitating another human can change our outlook to cold calculating depravity.

Zimbardo promises to offer ways to guard ourselves against making the choice to do evil at the end of the book. He states, "we can become wise and wily consumers instead of being easily influenced by authorities, group dynamics, persuasive appeals, and compliance strategies." (p.21). He believes we can all be heros in the right situational moment.

One of the strongest impressions I recieved from this first chapter was that inaction is evil just as an action. I was also touched by the excerpt from Paradise Lost John Milton that was used in the beginning: "The mind is its own place, and in it can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

There is so much to think about and my heart is heavy with the dark parts of humanity...if you can call it humanity when we act so horribly to one another. I like to remember the admonition of the Savior recorded in John 13:34 " A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another".