Monthly Archives: May 2013

Updated List of Favorite Movies

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My blog friends and FB friends submitted the following list of favorite movies. Please respond if you have not with your favorite 3 movies of all time. I will keep posting the growing list.

List of books to come later:

Favorite Movies:

2001 a space odyssey

a Christmas story

Apollo 13

best in show

blade runner

braveheart

caddyshack

Casablanca

casino

china town

fargo

fever pitch

fiddler on the roof

fight club

fletch

fletch lives

goodfellas

gran torino

hero (jet li)

legends of the fall

love actually

mad max

Moulin Rouge

office space

pillars of the earth

planes trains and   automobiles

pulp fiction

raiders of the lost   ark

reservoir dogs

river why

shindler’s list

Silver Linings   Playbook

sophie’s choice

sound of music

spinal tap

the big lebowski

the book of eli

the jerk

the smoke jumper

the sting

the three amigos

unfaithful

waiting for guffman

wizard of oz

Aliens

ET

Close Encounters

 

Memorial Day – My Grandpa George

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I am thinking about my Granpa George S. Ballif today. He died in 1972 but he stays in my heart and mind daily. In 1918, after his two year mission in France for the LDS Church, George was drafted into the army and left for France. He was put into the fighting area near the front lines where he stayed for many months. He saw the loss of life and experienced the trauma that combat troops endure. He saw many friends die. Granpa rarely talked about what he lived through in the war. My mother tells me that when the subject came up that he got a far away look on his face and would go and be away from the family for a few minutes. And he had a hand tremor that never went away.

I can only imagine the images that ran through his mind for the 54 years after the war. I love him and appreciate his sacrifice. I honor him and all the service men and women who have fought so that I can live in a free USA. Happy Memorial Day to all. Let’s never forget our soldiers.

A List of our favorite movies and books of all time

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Earlier today I asked my FB friends what are their favorite 3 movies and books of all time. Below is the beginning of a list that I plan on adding to from time to time. I am fascinated by what movies/books other people love. Lists like these intrigue me. So, take a minute and peruse this list and respond with any of YOUR favorite movies/books.

This is FUN!

Movies:
raiders of the lost ark; fight club; 2001 a space odyssey; the book of eli; gran torino; a Christmas story; river why; pillars of the earth; the smoke jumper; Casablanca; hero (jet li); the big lebowski; wizard of ox; unfaithful;, fargo; sound of music; fiddler on the roof; casino; goodfellas; shindler’s list; sophie’s choice; pulp fiction; blade runner; mad max; legends of the fall; braveheart; the sting; china town; reservoir dogs, spinal tap, best in show, the three amigos, the jerk, caddyshack, planes trains and automobiles; fever pitch; office space

Books:
unbroken; mutant message down under; a separate peace; cider house rules; prayer for owen meany; screwtape letters; mere Christianity; loving god; waking the dead; imagining Argentina; the glass castle, bridges of Madison county; the pilot’s wife; St. Augustine “confesions”,

we are moving – moving party on Saturday June 15

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At last, 1192 Roosevelt Ave has sold!!!!! We close on sale this Thursday and we close on our new home in Midvale (47 Princeton Ave) on June 12 or 13. What a relief to be moving forward! The home in Midvale is lovely and BIG: 1000 sq feet bigger than our sugarhouse home and 5 bedrooms instead of 3. We believe God has led us in this journey and we want our home to be a place of gathering and fun for friends and neighbors and family.

We are doing the largest part of the move on Saturday June 15. Calling all family and friends: I will be supplying pizza in a unending supply as long as there are faces to feed. We will begin moving at 9 am. If our family and friends come help in large numbers, I think we can get the whole house moved in one day. We are hiring out professionals for the heavy furniture – so don’t worry about your backs. Any amount of your time would be appreciated. And, old friends, we’d love to see you also.

Life is exciting and fun right now. My job is awesome: challenging and rewarding. Candace is starting in the Univ of Utah Masters in Social Work program in the fall. The boys are in a new school that we love. Isabelle continues to ASTOUND AND IMPRESS US with her sweet and fun personality, her dedication to her theatre and dance at her school, and her general blossoming into a kind and smart and fun and interesting young woman! I feel that great things are happening for our family. We feel so grateful.

It is easy to be grateful during the good times. I hope I can also be grateful in the future when new challenges and problems arise. We know that “the rain falls on the just and unjust” right? My hope is to share the love and good times. That’s why we want lots of friends and visitors to be with us in our new home. Please come visit after June 18th!!!

Let me publicly thank all my friends and family who have been such a help and strength for us in the last year or two as we have gone through some tough situations, changes, and challenges. You people have lifted us up and were so important to us. You know who you are. Thank you!!!

sit still

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The wise teachers through the centuries have said that as human being we need stillness and quiet and meditation. Whether you quiet time is prayer, or mindful meditation, or whatever, my experience teaches me that I need time to sit quietly. When I drive home from work every night from Orem to Salt Lake City I am always tempted to listen to loud and fun music or talk on the phone. My normal behavior is to fill up the silence with something. I do this because at some level I am not comfortable with silence.

Have you ever taken a long drive in complete silence? Have you ever spent the night alone in the wilderness? Try it. For me, at first, the silence is not comfortable. But it gets better. Silent time for me now is most helpful because it allows me to hear what I am thinking. It lets me know what is really going on for me. Am I calm or am I agitated?

gratitude – again

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So today my central emotion is gratitude. I am grateful that my mortgage lender is patient with my nervous mind and heart as we are coming down to the end and are close to closing the loan on our new house I am grateful that my son Eli loved the process of making a birthday card for his friend JJ today and that he wrote from ELI with big letters which shows me he likes his name (and probably himself). I am grateful that my wife still loves me even after I have been sooo grouchy and jumpy and distracted as the pressure and stress of my job rises, and the pressure of selling a house and buying a house rises, and the pressure of dealing with Tyler starting at a new school where he is under new academic pressures, and basically when I don’t manage my stress very well.

I love Candace for lots of reason about her. She is amazing. Beautiful, smart, kind, funny. And, I love her, and appreciate her, because every day she shows me grace and forgiveness. God said it is easy to love those that love you. But, I don’t think it is always easy to love me. I don’t say that because I think I am so bad. I say that because I know that I am not the easiest person to live with. I interrupt her all the time. I tend to focus on myself before I focus on her or the kids (I am working on and praying about this one). I can be a handful. I can be a little intense. Enough said.

So, yes. Today I am grateful for many things — but especially for my partner Candace!!

gratitude for Isabelle, age 16

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I think that when a person consciously feels gratitude that cells rearrange and the body heals. I like to use the words “active imaginatiioin.” What I do is hold the thing I am grateful for in my minds eye for at least twenty seconds. I feel it. I think about what it looks and smells and feels and sounds like. I try to engulf myself in the feeling of gratitude that the thing brings up.

For instance: last saturday night at midnight I get a call from my 16 year old daughter Isabelle who says that she is at a sleepover at a girlfriends and that she does not feel comfortable with the plans of the girls to go out and drive together after midnight and visit boys at a high school parking lot and then go hang out at a cemetary. She said “I just don’t feel comfortable or safe Dad.” Wow!! I am so grateful for her and her values and her decision making!