Field Trip #2- Barnes and Nobles

After going to Barnes and Nobles and watching You've Got Mail yesterday, I have decided it would be lovely to own a book store. A small, personal, cozy book store with nothing but classics. No trashy hits, no teenage brain candy. Just big, beautiful copies of Jane Austen and family classics like the Little Britches series, and good books for high school like Stargirl.

I would also enjoy owning a flower shop. A girl my sister knows is moving to a tiny, far away town soon, because "her family inherited a flower shop." What a nice thing to inherit! I would like living in a tiny town and running an inherited flower shop. See, I don't particularly enjoy growing gardens, not even flower gardens. And so the thought that I might enjoy working in a flower shop never crossed my mind, until I was buying a boutonniere for Prom. While I was looking at different flowers, a lady was ordering blue flowers for her father's funeral. She said he always liked blue. And I realized that people who work in flower shops get to see people during some of the most exciting and most devastating times of their lives. They get to see people in the midst of emotion, in a world that tends to shut down emotions far too much. They get to see high school students nervously picking out boutonnieres and corsages for their prom date, hoping they will like it and they will put it on properly when that moment arrives. They get to see couples in love, picking out the perfect arrangements for their wedding day. They get to see daughters bravely picking out flowers for their dad's funeral, and somehow managing to smile when they say he always liked the color blue.

Flower shop workers get to really see people. And from the words of You've Got Mail, book store owners get to "help people become whoever it is they are going to turn out to be, because when you read a book as a child it becomes part of your identity..."

Yes, I would quite like owning a flower shop or a book store.

Field Trip #1- The Temple Grounds

My mom just finished reading Love, Stargirl, the Sequel to a previously very often mentioned favorite book of mine. In the book the main character, Stargirl (duh) homeschools, and her mom randomly sends her on field trips, telling Stargirl she isn't allowed to come home until she has written a poem about what she noticed during her field trip. My mom has starting doing the same thing to my sister and I. Just like in the book, she will give us secret slips of paper with our destination and instructions written on it, and then us sends off. We can't come back until we've written about it, whether that takes 10 minutes or 10 hours.

Today our field trip destination was the Temple grounds. Here are some snippets from what I wrote:

My friend Shelby says her favorite sounds are laughter and peace. Peace, as in the sound in the Temple. I agree, those are my favorite sounds.

When my family was in St. George over spring break we visited the Temple down there. There was a big, extended family taking pictures on the grounds. That's sure a smart way to get a good picture-- put everyone in a place where they can't help but smile.

The nice, old man we just talked to said that if you wear a pirate patch while you draw, you can sketch the Temple perfectly. Something about making it 2D for your one showing eye... I'll have to try that sometime.